Pakistan court indicts Hafiz Saeed on terror financing charges

The court had earlier postponed the indictment due to the unavailability of one of the suspects.

Hafiz Saeed

An anti-terrorism court (ATC) indicted Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed on terror financing charges on Wednesday in Lahore. 

An FIR against Saeed and other JuD leaders Abdul Ghaffar, Hafiz Masood, Ameer Hamza and Malik Zafar Iqbal was registered in July on charges of terror financing. 

The case against Saeed and the others was registered by the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) in Gujranwala.

Saeed was brought to the court under strict security. Court proceedings went on for over an hour in ATC-1 under Judge Arshad Hussain Bhutta. 

Saeed and other JuD leaders’ lawyers Naseeruddin Advocate and Imran Fazal Gill denied the charges pertaining to terrorism financing on their clients’ behalf. Judge Bhutta ordered the prosecution to complete the evidence for a fair trial. 

The court had earlier postponed the indictment due to the unavailability of one of the suspects. Indictment is a standard procedure in a criminal trial. The next hearing of the case will be held on Thursday.

Saeed is the alleged mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks that killed 166 people. He also has a bounty on his head worth $10 million by the U.S. government.