Hafiz Saeed and his two aides - Zafar Iqbal and Yahya Mujahid - have been sentenced to 10-and-a-half years each, while his brother-in-law Abdul Rehman Makki has been sentenced to six-month imprisonment.
The FATF in October last decided to keep Pakistan on its 'Grey' list for failure to curb funnelling of funds to terror groups Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and others.
Without naming Pakistan, the FATF said in a statement that terrorists use various methods to gain financing, including using social media to identify new followers and to solicit financial or other forms of material support.
The Lahore anti-terrorism court has sentenced the man to imprisonment for five-and-a-half years and a fine of Rs 15,000 in each of the two cases.
“We have seen media reports that a court in Pakistan has sentenced UN-designated and internationally proscribed terrorist Hafiz Saeed in terror financing case. It is part of a long-pending international obligation of Pakistan to put an end to support for terrorism,” sources in the government said.
“This is not the first time that Hafiz Saeed has been arrested or detained. This drama has taken place at least 8 times since 2001. The question is whether this time it would be more than a cosmetic exercise and whether Saeed will be tried and sentenced for his terrorist activities,” External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said at a media briefing here.
Hafiz Saeed was arrested on Wednesday by the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) of Pakistan’s Punjab Province and sent to judicial custody.
Following global pressure, Pakistan had on July 3 booked Hafiz Saeed and his 12 accomplices for 'terrorism financing' in 23 cases.
Besides Saeed, interim bail was granted to Hafiz Masood, Ameer Hamza and Malik Zafar too.
He accused Pakistan of going into the denial mode whenever New Delhi demanded that terrorists wanted by India be handed over to it.
