A court in Pakistan has sentenced to prison three leaders of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, an organization accused by India and therefore the us of masterminding the 2008 attacks in Mumbai.
The sentencing comes before a September
deadline for Pakistan to avoid being blacklisted’ for failing to curb terror
financing by global financial watchdog the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
Inclusion on the blacklist, alongside Iran
and North Korea, would mean being shunned’ by international financial
institutions. The watchdog has involved Pakistan to prosecute those funding
terrorism, also on enact laws to assist track and stop terror financing.
Malik Zafar Iqbal and Abdul Salam were
each handed 16-1/2 year total sentences on four charges, to be served
concurrently, while a 3rd man, Hafiz Abdul Rehman Makki, got 1-1/2 years on one
charge, consistent with a court judgment seen by Reuters.
The men were associates of Hafiz Saeed,
who was sentenced’ to a complete of 11 years in prison in February. All the
sentences are concurrent so Saeed, Iqbal and Salam will serve five years.
Saeed founded and led Lashkar-e-Taiba
(LeT), or the military of the Pure, a gaggle blamed by India and therefore the
us for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which killed 160 people, including Americans
and other foreigners.
Saeed and his associates also face an
extra slew of cases for allegedly financing militant activities, while Iqbal
and Makki have already been convicted’ in several cases.
Saeed says his network, which spans 300
seminaries and schools, hospitals, a publisher and ambulance services, has no
ties to militant groups. Jamat-ud-Dawa funds the militant wing LeT.
A 2011 U.S. sanctions designation
describes Iqbal as a co-founder of LeT and responsible of its financing
activities. Salam is described because the interim leader of the group during
the brief periods when Saeed was arrested within the aftermath of the Mumbai
attacks, and running its network of seminaries.
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