ATC indicts 3 JuD leaders involved in terror financing, terrorism

LAHORE: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Tuesday indicted three leaders of the proscribed organisation Jamaatud Dawa (JuD) in three separate cases of alleged terror financing and terrorism.

The ATC judge Ejaz Ahmad Butter has indicted JuD leaders, including Hafiz Abdul Rehman Makki, Malik Zafar Iqbal and Yahya Muahid, all members of Tanzeem Al-Anfaal Trust, which is a subsidiary organisation of the proscribed Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT).

The court has said accused involved in three different cases of alleged terror financing and terrorism. The court, after the indictment of the accused, has summoned prosecution witnesses for today (Wednesday).

According to the details of the cases against the JuD leaders, on July 03, 2019, the top 13 leaders of the JuD were booked in multiple cases for terror financing and money laundering under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) 1997. The CTD, which registered the cases in five cities of Punjab, declared that the JuD was financing terrorism from the massive funds, collected through non-profit organisations and trusts including Al-Anfaal Trust, Dawatul Irshad Trust, Muaz Bin Jabal Trust, etc.

Furthermore, the CTD, during detailed investigations, found that they had links with the JuD and its top leadership, accused of financing terrorism by building huge assets and properties from the collected funds in Pakistan. These non-profit organisations were banned in April 2019.

Later, on July 17, Hafiz Saeed was arrested from Gujranwala on charges of terror financing by the Punjab CTD. Besides, the top JuD leaders, Malik Zafar Iqbal, Ameer Hamza, Mohammad Yahya Aziz, Mohammad Naeem, Mohsin Bilal, Abdul Raqeeb, Dr Ahmad Daud, Dr Muhammad Ayub, Abdullah Ubaid, Mohammad Ali, Yahya Muahid and Abdul Ghaffar were booked.

However, the JuD leaders claim that they had been nominated in the cases by wrongly attributing them as leaders of the banned LeT. According to the counsel of the JuD leaders, his clients had quit the LeT before the organisation was banned in 2002.

The counsel argued that the cases against his clients has been made on the basis of a link to defunct Al-Anfaal Trust, which was formed to construct mosques in the country.

Four cases against JuD Chief Professor Hafiz Muhammad Saeed have been decided so far. A total of 41 cases have been registered by the CTD against the leaders of JuD, out of which 25 have been decided, while the rest are pending in the ATC courts.

According to the Counterterrorism Department, Malik Zafar Iqbal, Yahya Aziz and Abdul Islam are United Nations-designated persons involved in terrorism financing.