26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed serving 78-year jail sentence in Pak custody: UNSC committee

PTI, Jan 10, 2024, 9:11 AM IST

United Nations: Mumbai terror attack mastermind and outlawed Jamat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Saeed is in the custody of Pakistan serving a 78-year-imprisonment sentence as a result of a conviction in seven terror financing cases, the UN said in updated information.

In December, India asked Pakistan to extradite Saeed, a United Nations-proscribed terrorist, who is wanted by Indian probe agencies in a number of terror cases.

Saeed, who was designated as a global terrorist by the UN Security Council’s 1267 Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee in December 2008, is “in (the) custody of the Government of Pakistan, serving a 78-year imprisonment sentence since 12 February 2020 as a result of conviction in seven terror financing cases,” the Sanctions Committee said in an amended entry.

Last month, the Security Council Committee enacted amendments to certain entries in its ISIL (Da’esh) and Al-Qaida Sanctions List of individuals and entities subject to the assets freeze, travel ban, and arms embargo.

Under these amendments, the Sanctions Committee also noted that Hafiz Abdul Salam Bhuttavi, founding member of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Saeed’s deputy, is “confirmed deceased.”

Bhuttavi, an UN-designated terrorist who trained the LeT attackers for the 2008 Mumbai terror attack and acted as the terror outfit’s chief on at least two occasions, died in prison in May last year in Pakistan’s Punjab province while serving a sentence for terror financing.