A Lahore anti-terrorism court convicted Jamatud Dawa leader Hafiz Saeed in two terror-financing cases on Wednesday.
He was slapped with a prison sentence of five and a half years and a fine of Rs15,000 in each case. The sentences of both cases will run concurrently. The court also granted him the benefit of Section 382-B of the Code of Criminal Procedure (reduction of period of sentence of imprisonment).
He was convicted under the Anti-Terrorism Act Section 11-F(2) — pertaining to membership, support and meetings relating to a proscribed organisation — and 11-N (punishment under Sections 11-H [fund-raising] to 11-K [money laundering]).
Who is Hafiz Saeed and why his conviction matters?
Hafiz Saeed, a hardline cleric accused by the US and India of orchestrating the 2008 Mumbai attacks, has been a well-known, albeit shadowy, figure in Pakistan since the 2000s. Though his media presence has dwindled over the years, the past decade has seen Saeed in and out of the limelight owing to crackdowns by the government on his organisation Lashkar-i-Taiba (LeT) and its charity wing, Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), due to mounting international pressure.