Pak court sentences 2 LeT members to 15 years in jail

Lahore's anti-terrorism court has convicted Luqman Shah and Masoodur Rehman of terror financing saying that they managed assets of the LeT and raised funds for the organisation.

Lahore: Two members of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) were sentenced to 15 years in jail in terror financing cases by a Pakistani anti-terrorism court here on Saturday.

"Today the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) Lahore concluded the trial of two leaders -- Luqman Shah and Masoodur Rehman -- of proscribed organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in two cases registered, investigated by the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) of Punjab police in 2019," the CTD said in a statement.

The court found the accused guilty of terror financing under section 11-N of Anti-Terrorism Act 1997. Along with the 15-year imprisonment, fines were imposed on both.

The CTD said the two convicts had committed offences of terror financing by managing the assets/properties of the LeT and by raising funds from them.

The prosecution successfully proved the offences by producing strong evidence wherein the convicts had collected funds for LeT and managed assets of LeT. The conviction and sentence will have big impact to stop terrorism financing in the country, the CTD said.

Last month, the Lahore ATC had awarded up to five years jail sentence to four senior leaders of Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD) and close aides of the mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai terror attack Hafiz Saeed in a terror-financing case.

They were Malik Zafar Iqbal and Yahya Aziz, Abdul Rehman Makki and Abdus Salam. Except for Abdul Rehman, the rest are United Nations Designated Persons involved in terror financing.

In February, Hafiz Saeed was sentenced to jail for 11 years on terror finance charges by an ATC in Lahore.

The ATC sentenced Saeed and his close aide Zafar Iqbal to five-and-a-half years each in two cases. A total of 11 years sentence will run concurrently. Saeed is serving his term in Lahore's Kot Lakhpat jail. He was arrested in July last year.

The CTD of Punjab police had registered 23 FIRs against Saeed and his accomplices on the charges of terror financing in different cities of the province.

The Hafiz Saeed-led JuD is the front organisation for the LeT, which is responsible for carrying out the 2008 Mumbai attack that killed 166 people, including six Americans.

The US named Saeed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, and the US, since 2012, has offered a USD 10 million reward for information that brings Saeed to justice.

He was listed as a terrorist under the UN Security Council Resolution 1267 in December 2008.

PTI