Pak court convicts Mumbai 'mastermind' in terrorism case

A Pakistani anti-terrorism court has sentenced Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the founder of the Lashkar-e-Taiba armed group, to five and a half years' prison in a case related to terrorism financing, his lawyer says.

Saeed was convicted and sentenced on two counts by a court in the eastern city of Lahore on Wednesday, quoting Imran Gill, the lawyer, reports Al Jazeera.

He was sentenced to six months' imprisonment for being a member of a "proscribed organisation" under Pakistani law, and another five years for a charge related to "illegal property", Gill said.

Abdur Rauf Wattoo, the government’s prosecutor in the case, confirmed the verdict, adding that Saeed’s associate Zafar Iqbal had also been convicted and sentenced to the same term.

The arrest and charging of Saeed, the alleged mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed more than 160 people, has been a long-standing demand of the United States and Pakistan's neighbour India.

The 70-year-old says he is not linked to any armed group, although he heads Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), the charitable arm of the LeT group. Both the JuD and LeT are "banned organisations" under Pakistani anti-terrorism law.

Saeed's conviction comes days ahead of a key meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an intergovernmental watchdog that monitors terrorism and criminal financing laws, in Paris.

FATF will be issuing a decision on whether Pakistan has taken sufficient steps to avoid being "blacklisted", a designation that would come as a blow to the South Asian nation’s struggling economy.

A FATF blacklisting would put in place barriers that would serve to isolate Pakistan's economy from the international banking system, introducing stricter checks and safeguards on transactions involving the country.

Saeed was indicted in December on six charges under anti-terrorism laws, with verdicts still due in four cases.

"Section 11-N of the Anti-Terrorism Act deals with possessing property, facilitating and fundraising ... if a proscribed person or organisation holds a property, then that is considered to be for the purpose of terrorism," said Wattoo, the prosecutor.

"So on that basis the court has found sufficient evidence and convicted Zafar Iqbal and Hafiz Saeed on two counts each."