UNITED NATIONS: Mumbai terror attack mastermind and Lashkar-e-Tayyiba leader Hafiz Saeed is in the custody of the Pakistan government and is serving a 78-year imprisonment sentence following his conviction in terror financing cases, the UN has said in updated information.
Saeed, 73, was designated as a global terrorist by the UN Security Council’s Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee in December 2008.
He is in the “custody of the Government of Pakistan serving a 78-year imprisonment sentence since 12 February 2020 as a result of a conviction in seven terror financing cases,” the Sanctions Committee said in an amended entry posted through a press release on the UN website.
Saeed’s address is listed as House No. 116E, Mohalla Johar, Lahore Tehsil, Lahore City, Lahore District, Pakistan “as of” May 2008.
In December, India asked Pakistan to extradite Saeed, the 2008 Mumbai terror attack mastermind who Indian probe agencies want in several terror cases.
Last month, the Security Council 1267 Committee enacted a few amendments to certain entries on its ISIL (Da’esh) and Al-Qaida Sanctions List of individuals and entities subject to assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo. Saeed is among those whose information has been amended and the updated details have been made available through the press release.
Under these amendments, the Sanctions Committee also noted that Hafiz Abdul Salam Bhuttavi, founding member of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and deputy to Saeed is “confirmed deceased”.
Bhuttavi, a UNSC-designated terrorist who trained the Lashkar-e-Taiba attackers for the 2008 Mumbai terror attack and acted as the outfit’s chief on at least two occasions, died in a prison in May last year in Pakistan’s Punjab province while serving a sentence for terror-financing.