Sajid Majeed Mir’s sentencing looks to be half of Pakistan’s efforts to find off the grey list of the Monetary Action Activity Power.
Printed On 28 Jun 2022
Pakistan has sentenced one amongst the males linked to the Mumbai attacks to 15 years in penal complex for fright financing unrelated to the 2008 assaults, in line with courtroom documents viewed by The Associated Press data company on Monday.
Sajid Majeed Mir, 43, changed into arrested in 2020 and sentenced in Might perhaps perhaps perhaps this yr, in line with the documents, but his detention and sentencing had been in fact no longer disclosed by Pakistan, AP acknowledged.
He changed into sought by the FBI in connection with the 2008 attacks on India’s monetary hub that killed 166 individuals, alongside with six Individuals.
Below its Rewards for Justice programme, the USA supplied up to $5m for data on Mir’s alleged involvement in the attacks in neighbouring India.
The courtroom documents offered no particulars on Mir’s involvement in fright financing.
In November 2008, a neighborhood of 10 young attackers who allegedly sailed from Karachi hijacked an Indian fishing boat, killed its captain and took a rubber dinghy into Mumbai. They then systematically attacked excessive-pause hotels, a recount space, a clinic and a Jewish neighborhood centre over three chaotic days.
The 10 had been suspected participants of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-primarily primarily based armed neighborhood, and Indian investigators later acknowledged their actions had been directed by phone by handlers in Pakistan. Nine of the attackers had been killed by Indian forces. Ajmal Kasab, the lone survivor, changed into arrested, tried and later hanged by Indian authorities.
Mir changed into designated a “terrorist” by the US and changed into indicted in 2011. He changed into on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.
Mir’s whereabouts weren’t publicly known till the Pakistani newspaper The Spoil of day reported over the weekend that he had been quietly arrested in Gujranwala, a city in Punjab province. It acknowledged Mir’s sentencing perceived to be half of efforts made by Pakistan to find off the grey list of the Monetary Action Activity Power.
The Paris-primarily primarily based neighborhood added Pakistan to the list in 2018. The “gray list” contains nations with a excessive chance of cash laundering and terrorism financing but which indulge in formally committed to working with the activity power to make changes.
In step with the Pakistani courtroom documents considered by the AP, Mir changed into a member of a charity build up by Hafiz Saeed, who had also been designated a terrorist by the US Justice Division and had a $10m bounty on his head.
Saeed is the founding father of the outlawed Lashkar-e-Taiba, of which Mir changed into believed to be a member. The neighborhood changed into lively for years in the Himalayan distress of Kashmir, which is split between Pakistan and India but claimed by each and each in its entirety.
In April, Saeed changed into sentenced to 31 years in penal complex for fright financing but he changed into in fact no longer charged in connection with the Mumbai attacks.
Mir changed into sentenced to 15 years on Might perhaps perhaps perhaps 16 by a courtroom in Gujranwala, in line with the documents offered to the AP by an legit with the Punjab counterterrorism department. The legit requested that he no longer be known because he changed into no longer current to talk to the media.
The legit acknowledged Mir planned to charm the sentencing.
There changed into no speedy commentary from India about Mir’s sentencing in Pakistan.
Family between Pakistan and India had been strained after the assault on India’s monetary hub. The rival South Asian powers indulge in fought three wars since gaining independence from Britain in 1947, two of them over Kashmir.