The imprisoned Jamaatud Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed was sentenced to 31 years in jail collectively in two more cases of terror-financing by an Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in Lahore on Friday.
ATC Judge Ejaz Ahmad Buttar convicted the 70-year-old cleric in the cases filed against him by the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) Lahore and Sahiwal officials.
The court awarded him rigorous imprisonment of 16 years and a half in the case No.90/19 and 15 years and a half in the case No.21/19.
The court announced the verdict after hearing final arguments from both defence and prosecution sides and recording evidence.
According to Aljazeera News, a Pakistani court has sentenced Hafiz Saeed, founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the armed group blamed by the United States and India for the deadly 2008 Mumbai siege, to 31 years in prison in two cases of terrorism financing.
The Aljazeera quoted the verdict that court documents show Saeed was found guilty of multiple breaches in the two cases, but it was not immediately clear how much jail time it would entail given his current incarceration and the sentences’ running concurrently.
“The sentences awarded to convict Hafiz Muhammad Saeed run concurrently of this case and of previously awarded, if any,” said a court order dated April 7.
The judge ordered the authorities concerned to take over a mosque and a Madressah built using the funds collected by Hafiz Saeed.
The JuD chief was arrested in July 2019 in connection with terror financing while he was on his way from Lahore to Gujranwala. Earlier in 2020, he was convicted in two cases of terror-financing when a Lahore anti-terrorism court awarded him 15 years in prison and a fine of Rs15,000 in each case.
