Hafiz Saeed’s extradition unlikely; Pakistan says he’s serving 78-yr sentence

New Delhi, January 10

Pakistan took to the tried and tested method of claiming that Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) leader Hafiz Saeed is serving multiple sentences in order to stonewall India’s request to hand him over for trial in the 2008 Mumbai attacks case.

Pakistan’s response was submitted to the UNSC’s 1267 Sanctions Committee. Saeed is in the “custody of the Government of Pakistan serving a 78-year imprisonment sentence since February 12, 2020, as a result of conviction in seven terror financing cases”, said the Sanctions Committee in an amended entry posted through a press release on the UN website.

Mumbai terror attack mastermind

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• India has been seeking extradition of Lashkar-e-Toiba founder and mastermind of the Mumbai terror attack Hafiz Saeed
• Islamabad has said “Saeed is in the custody of the Government of Pakistan serving a 78-year imprisonment sentence since February 12, 2020, as a result of conviction in seven terror financing cases”

The 1267 Sanctions Committee has made changes in certain entries on its ISIL (Da’esh) and Al-Qaida Sanctions List of individuals and entities subject to asset 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.

Saeed, 73, was designated as a global terrorist by the UN Security Council’s Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee in December 2008.

The committee also said Hafiz Abdul Salam Bhuttavi, a founding member of the LeT and deputy to Saeed, was “confirmed deceased”. Bhuttavi was also a UNSC-designated terrorist who had trained the LeT attackers for the 2008 Mumbai terror attack and had died in a prison in May last year in Pakistan’s Punjab province.

Saeed’s address is listed as House No. 116E, Mohalla Johar, Lahore Tehsil, Lahore City, Pakistan, “as of” May 2008.