Conviction: Hafiz Saeed sentenced to jail for terror-financing

An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Lahore on Wednesday convicted banned Jamaatud Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed in two terror-financing cases, sentencing him to jail for five years and six months, besides reportedly imposing a fine of Rs15,000 in each case.

The court that convicted Saeed under sections 11-F (2) and 11-N of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), had reserved its verdict in the two cases on February 6.

On Tuesday, the court had accepted a plea of Hafiz Saeed, chief of the banned Jamaatud Dawa (JuD), to club all six terror financing cases against him and his associates and announce the verdict on completion of the trial.

The court had indicted the JuD chief and three of his associates – Hafiz Abdul Salam bin Mohammad, Mohammad Ashraf and Prof Zafar Iqbal – on terror financing charges on December 11 last year in a case filed by the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD). Saeed and Prof Zafar Iqbal were later indicted in a similar case on December 20. The cases were filed by CTD Lahore and Gujranwala chapters.

The ATC on Saturday last week had deferred announcing its verdict in the terror financing cases and decided to hear arguments on February 11 on the suspects’ application to hear all cases first before reserving its judgment.

The application, filed by the petitioners’ counsel, requested that collective verdicts be issued after the completion of trials in all the cases pending against them.

The petition also prayed the court to quash the false First Information Report (FIR) registered against the JuD chief. According to Deputy Prosecutor General Abdul Rauf Wattoo, in total six cases against the said individuals were pending before the same court, and in four of these cases, presentation of evidence was in progress.