Hafiz Saeed, the alleged mastermind of deadly 2008 attacks in Mumbai, pleaded not guilty on Friday in a second case on charges of financing terrorism, a government prosecutor and a defense lawyer said.
Saeed, who was indicted on similar charges in another case on Dec 11, was presented in an anti-terrorism court in Lahore, prosecutor Abdur Rauf Watto said. Defence lawyer Imran Gill said the second case was related to Hafiz Saeed’s charity operations. “The charities the accused ran collected illegal funds,” Watto said.
Hafiz Saeed is the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a group blamed by the United States and India for four-day Mumbai siege in which 160 people were killed. The counterterrorism department had arrested Hafiz Saeed in July, days before a visit to Washington by Prime Minister Imran in Khan.
The indictments came ahead of a meeting of world financial watchdog Financial Action Task Force (FATF) early next year that will decide whether to blacklist Pakistan for its failure to curb terror financing.
The United States has offered a reward of $10 million for information leading to the conviction of Saeed, who has been arrested and released several times over the past decade. Washington has long pressured Pakistan to try Hafiz Saeed, who has denied any involvement in the Mumbai attacks and says his network, which spans 300 seminaries and schools, hospitals, a publishing house and ambulance services, has no ties to militant groups.
