Pakistani Militant Leader Convicted Of Terror-Financing Charges

Hafiz Muhammad Saeed was arrested in July 2019.

A Pakistani court has sentenced the alleged mastermind of the deadly 2008 attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai to 5 1/2 years in prison on terrorism-financing charges.

An anti-terrorism court in the city of Lahore on November 19 also fined Hafiz Muhammad Saeed 110,000 rupees (about $700).

Saeed was arrested in July 2019 by the Counterterrorism Department. He is already in prison serving two sentences of 5 1/2 years each, handed down to him in February.

Reuters reported that the sentences will run concurrently, meaning he won’t serve any extra jail time.

The new conviction comes as Pakistan faces potential punitive blacklisting by the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an intergovernmental organization that underpins the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing.

Pakistan has remained on the organization's "gray list" since 2018.

Saeed is the founder of Lashkar-e Taiba (LeT), the militant group blamed by the United States and India for the Mumbai siege in which at least 166 people, including Americans, were killed.

The United States has offered a reward of $10 million for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Saeed, who has denied involvement in the attack.