Hafiz Saeed in custody serving 78-year jail: Updated UN information

United Nations: Mumbai terror attack mastermind and Lashkar-e-Tayyiba leader Hafiz Saeed is in the custody of the Pakistan government and is serving a 78-year imprisonment sentence following his conviction in terror financing cases, the UN has said in updated information.

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

He is in the "custody of the Government of Pakistan serving a 78-year imprisonment sentence since 12 February 2020 as a result of a conviction in seven terror financing cases,” the Sanctions Committee said in an amended entry posted through a press release on the UN website.

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

In December, India asked Pakistan to extradite Saeed, the 2008 Mumbai terror attack mastermind who Indian probe agencies want in several terror cases.

Last month, the Security Council 1267 Committee enacted a few amendments to certain entries on its ISIL (Da’esh) and Al-Qaida Sanctions List of individuals and entities subject to assets 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.

Under these amendments, the Sanctions Committee also noted that Hafiz Abdul Salam Bhuttavi, founding member of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and deputy to Saeed is "confirmed deceased.”

Bhuttavi, a UNSC-designated terrorist who trained the Lashkar-e-Taiba attackers for the 2008 Mumbai terror attack and acted as the outfit’s chief on at least two occasions, died in a prison in May last year in Pakistan's Punjab province while serving a sentence for terror financing.

The Sanctions Committee also noted that Maulana Fazlullah, commander of Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), was “confirmed deceased on 13 June 2018.” TTP commander since November 2013, Fazlullah led the local TTP in Pakistan’s northwest valley of Swat from 2007 to 2009.

Pakistani national Noor Wali Mehsud is leader of Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan "following the death of former TTP leader Maulana Fazlullah,” an amended entry on Mehsud said. His address is listed as Paktika Province in Afghanistan as of November 26 2022.

According to the amended information, the Al Rashid Trust, whose headquarters was in Pakistan, is "reportedly defunct.”

Al Rashid Trust was associated with Jaish-i-Mohammed and had been involved in the financing of Al-Qaida and the Taliban. Until October 2008, the entity also appeared as "Aid Organisation of the Ulema, Pakistan”.

The amended information said that “no indication of any activity under the name of Al-Rashid Trust has emerged as of November 2023.”

The ISIL (Da’esh) and Al-Qaida Sanctions List is updated regularly based on relevant information provided by Member States and international and regional organisations.