The Anti-Terrorism Court in Pakistan on Thursday sentenced four top militants of the banned organization Jamaat-ud-Dawa and close aides of the Mumbai attack conspirator Hafiz Saeed in the terror funding case. Hafiz Abdul Rehman Makki, Malik Zafar Iqbal, Yaha Aziz and Abdul Salam were convicted on June 9. Iqbal and Aziz were sentenced to five years in prison and Makki and Abdul Salam were sentenced one year each. Makki is a relative of Saeed, the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba and the head of Jamaat-ud-Dawah. "On June 9, Hafiz Abdul Rahman Makki, Malik Zafar Iqbal, Yaha Aziz and Abdul Salam were found guilty by the Lahore Anti-Terrorism Court in a terror funding case," a spokesman for the Anti-Terrorism Department (CTD) said in a statement.
The anti-terror court also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 each on the four convicts. All four were convicted under the Prevention of Terrorism Act 1997. The court found the Jamaat / Lashkar leaders guilty of the crime of funding for terrorism. They were collecting funds and illegally funding Lashkar. The court has also ordered the forfeiture of property earned from the funds raised for terrorism.
All the four convicts had declared themselves innocent. The court announced the verdict after presenting prosecution witnesses and related evidence against them. It is believed that the above action has been taken to avoid blacklisting by FATF in Pakistan. Earlier Hafiz Saeed was convicted by an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan and sentenced to 11 years in prison in the case of Terror Financing.
