The Lahore High Court on Saturday quashed the conviction of a decrease courtroom and acquitted six senior leaders of the banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) of Mumbai assault mastermind Hafiz Saeed in a terror financing case.
Saeed-led Jamaat-ud-Dawa is the lead group for the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the terrorist group chargeable for finishing up the 2008 Mumbai assaults, which killed 166 individuals, together with six Americans.
The Anti-Terrorism Court in Lahore had in April this 12 months ordered senior Jamaat-ud-Dawa leaders-Prof. Malik Zafar Iqbal, Yahya Mujahid (JuD spokesperson), Nasrullah, Samiullah and Umar Bahadur- and Hafiz Abdul Rehman Makki (Saeed’s brother-in-law) have been sentenced to 6 months in jail after an FIR was registered by the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD). ) of Punjab Police.
The trial courtroom had discovered these leaders responsible of financing terrorism. They have been amassing cash and illegally funding the banned outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). It additionally ordered confiscation of belongings made out of cash collected by means of terrorism financing.
“On Saturday, a division bench of the LHC comprising Chief Justice Muhammad Amir Bhatti and Justice Tariq Salim Shaikh quashed the trial courtroom’s choice in FIR 18 of the CTD in opposition to the six JuD leaders, because the prosecution didn’t show the fees in opposition to the appellants past affordable doubt. failed, a courtroom official advised PTI.
The official mentioned the division bench accepted the plea of ​​Jamaat-ud-Dawa leaders saying that “the statement of the star witness of the prosecution is not credible as there is no evidence”.
The counsel for Jamaat-ud-Dawa leaders advised the LHC that the Al-Anfal Trust, of which the petitioners have been members, “has no links with the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)”.
The Law Officer argued that the belief in query was appearing as a “proxy for Lashkar-e-Taiba” and the appellants have been the functionaries of the belief.
The JuD leaders have been produced earlier than the LHC amid tight safety. He was convicted in different terror financing instances and was lodged in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail.
Lashkar founder Saeed has additionally been convicted in dozens of FIRs lodged by the CTD on terrorism financing fees. The CTD had registered 41 FIRs in opposition to the leaders of JuD in several cities. The trial courtroom has to date determined 37 of them.
The ATC has to date sentenced Saeed to 36 years of collective imprisonment beneath the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 on fees of financing terrorism in 5 instances. Saeed’s jail phrases will run concurrently, ie he is not going to be in jail for a few years.
He is serving his sentence in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail together with different convicted JuD leaders. He was arrested in July 2019.
The US has designated Saeed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, and the US has provided a USD 10 million reward since 2012 for data that introduced Saeed to justice. He was listed as a terrorist in 2008 beneath a UN Security Council decision.
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With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
