Pak quietly jails 26/11 handler Sajid Mir for 15 yrs in terror funding case

TIL Desk/World/Lahore/ Sajid Majeed Mir, one of India’s most wanted terrorists on whom the US has placed a bounty of USD 5 million for his role in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, has been jailed for over 15 years in a terror-financing case by an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan, which is struggling to exit the grey list of the FATF.

The Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) of the Punjab Police, which often issues convictions of the suspects in such cases to the media, did not notify Mir’s conviction. His sentencing comes as Islamabad prepares for on site visit by the officials from the global terror financing watchdog Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to verify the implementation of Pakistan’s relevant anti-money laundering and terrorism-financing reforms.

An anti-terrorism court in Lahore early this month had handed down 15 and a half years jail term to Sajid Majeed Mir, an activist of banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), in a terror-financing case, a senior lawyer associated with terror financing cases of LeT and Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) leaders told on Friday. Besides, since it was an in-camera proceeding at the jail, the media was not allowed.