By Mubasher Bukhari
LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) – A Pakistani court sentenced Islamist leader Hafiz Saeed, founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the militant group blamed by the United States and India for the 2008 Mumbai siege, to 31 years in prison in two cases of terrorism financing, court documents showed on Friday.
He 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, that was seen by Reuters.
Saeed is already in jail having been found guilty on multiple similar charges in 2020.
Saeed has been arrested and released several times over the past decade and denies involvement with militancy, including the 2008 Mumbai siege in which 160 people were killed, some of whom were Americans.
The United States offered a reward of $10 million for information leading to the conviction of Saeed.
The conviction comes as Pakistan tries to avoid punitive blacklisting by global dirty money watchdog the Financial Action Task Force, which judges a country’s ability to combat illicit financing, including to militant organisations.
Pakistan has remained on the “grey list” since 2018.
(Writing by Raza Hassan)
