Hafiz Saeed, the alleged mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack that killed 165 people, has been officially charged with terrorist-financing in a Pakistani counter-terrorism court.
The court in Lahore indicted Saeed and four his accomplices with financing terrorist activities in various cities of the Punjab province. The filing of charges was due on Saturday but was delayed because one of the suspects could not be present at court.
Saeed is a co-founder of the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist group that is accused of the Mumbai attack in 2008, and the chief of its front organization, Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD). He was arrested alongside 12 other suspects in Pakistan in July and has been in jail ever since.
The counter-terrorism department of the Punjab police filed 23 terrorism-related cases against him in a sweeping clampdown by the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan. The cases were related to Saeed and 23 different accomplices funneling money to terrorists through five separate trusts and NGOs.
The JuD leader is also a UN-designated a global terrorist, and the US previously posted a $10 million bounty for evidence leading to Saeed’s conviction. Saeed himself continues to deny all the charges, calling them the result of international pressure on the Pakistani government.
The Khan government launched large-scale investigations into alleged terrorist financing cases earlier this year under the threat of sanction by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism financing group established by the G7. Saeed’s indictment comes ahead of a FATF meeting early next year, which is particularly set to decide whether Islamabad has failed to curb terrorist financing.
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