Hafiz Saeed, others booked over terror financing charges

ISLAMABAD: Punjab Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) on Wednesday said that Jama’t-ud-Dawa’s Hafiz Saeed and others have been booked in cases of terror financing.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, the CTD spokeperson said that cases have been registered against them in Lahore, Gujranwala and Multan for collecting funds for terrorism through assets/properties held as trusts and non-profit organisations, including Al-Anfaal Trust, Dawa’at-ul-Irshad trust and Muaz Bin Jabal Trust.

The spokesperson further said that large-scale investigations have been launched into the financing of proscribed organisations, including Jama’at-ud-Dawa and Lashkar-e-Taiba in connection with the implementation of United Nations (UN) sanctions against these designated entities and persons as directed by National Security Committee (NSC) in its meeting on January 1, 2019 which was chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan for implementing the National Action Plan (NAP).

While giving details, the spokesman said that on July 1 and 2, Punjab CTD registered 23 cases against the leadership of Jama’at-ud-Dawa (JuD), Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation (FiF) for making assets from terrorism financing through trusts/NPOs, including Dawat-ul-Irshad Trust, Muaz-Bin-Jabal Trust, Al-Anfaal Trust, Al-Hamd Trust and Al-Madina Foundation Trust.

The spokesman said that different leaders of JuD and LeT have been also booked including Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, Abdul Rehman Makki, Malik Zafar Iqbal, Ameer Hamza, Muhammad Yahya Aziz, Muhammad Naeem Sh., Mohsin Bilal, Abdul Raqeeb, Dr. Ahmad Daud, Dr. Muhammad Ayub, Abdullah Ubaid, Muhammad Ali and Abdul Ghaffar & others.

Similarly, large scale investigations have been launched into matters of JuD, LeT and FIF regarding their holding and use of trusts to raise funds for terrorism financing. They made these assets from funds of terrorism financing and held and used these assets to raise more funds for further terrorism financing.

Hence, they committed multiple offenses of terrorism financing and money laundering under the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997. They will be prosecuted in anti-terrorism courts for the commission of these offenses. These assets/NPOs have already been taken over by the government in compliance with the UN’s sanctions, concluded the CTD spokesman.

Earlier in February this year, Pakistan re-instated a ban on two charities linked to Saeed called JuD and Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF) – which had long been on a UN international terrorism blacklist.The United States and India blamed the LeT for numerous deadly militant attacks, including a four-day siege by gunmen in Mumbai in 2008 that killed 166 people. Washington also offered $10 million for information leading to Saeed’s arrest and conviction.Saeed, who denies being the mastermind of the Mumbai attacks, had always claimed he had no links to militant violence. He had maintained his charities were vital for helping the poor and had no militant ties.