An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan has awarded over 15 years jail term in a terror-financing case to another main handler of the deadly 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people including 26 foreigners.
Militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) member Sajid Majeed Mir, 44, was jailed for 15 and a half years in a terror-financing case by the court in Lahore, in the first week of this month.
He was also fined Rs420,000. He is currently serving sentence in Kot Lakhpat jail, a source told the Dawn newspaper.
A senior lawyer associated with terror-financing cases of LeT and Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) leaders also confirmed the development to the Indian news agency PTI on Friday.
It all happened so quietly that no one came to know about such an important court verdict in such a high-profile case, except for a very brief report in one of the newspapers, which too could not attract attention. His detention, which apparently took place in later part of April, was also kept away from local media’s prying eyes.
Pakistani authorities had in the past claimed he had died, but Western countries remained unconvinced and demanded proof of his death. This issue rather became a major sticking point in the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) assessment of Pakistan’s progress on the action plan late last year. This was where things finally started moving in Mir’s case leading to his ‘arrest’.
Mir, who has a bounty of $5 million, is on India's most-wanted list for his role in the Mumbai attacks.
Dubbed as the "project manager" of the 2008 attacks, he reportedly had visited India in 2005 using a fake passport with a fake name.
Another mastermind of the terror attacks and JuD chief Hafiz Saeed, also the founder of LeT, was sentenced in 2020, to 68 years imprisonment in terror-financing cases by the Lahore court.
Mumbai attack operation commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi is also convicted for several years in jail. Both Saeed and Maki are also in Kot Lapkhapt jail in Lahore.
Who is Mir?
Lahore-born Mir is claimed to have spent two years carrying out reconnaissance and scouting targets in Mumbai. He reportedly did this with the help of David Coleman Headley – the American terrorist, who is currently serving a 35 years sentence in the US for his involvement in international terrorism.
Mir’s association with LeT and Hafiz Saeed dates back to 1994 when he was just 16. He then rose in the terrorist outfit’s ranks and became associated with its international operations wing.
Reports show that he remained the deputy chief of LeT’s international operations, but others suggest that he even at some point led that unit. He is said to have enjoyed direct access to Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, who was the chief of all terrorism operations.
Experts say he also got linked up with al-Qaeda while conducting international operations.
He had in 2005, secretly toured India, where he went as a cricket fan to watch a match between the cricket teams of the two countries. On that occasion, he remained in India for about 15 days.
Mir’s name started featuring on the international terrorism landscape as early as 2002, when he attempted to make large military equipment purchases from the US with the help of his Virginia-based accomplices. However, that project came to an end when the FBI arrested 11 people in what became to be known as ‘Virginia Paintball Jihadi’ case. Ten of them were jailed.
He later turned towards Australia. In 2003 he planned attacks in Australia with the help of a French national, Willie Brigitte, and an Australian, Faheem Khalid Lodhi, for Australian troops presence in Afghanistan.
Lodhi was convicted by an Australian court in June 2006 of planning acts of terrorism and handed down 20 years in prison, while Brigitte, who was deported to France in 2003, was convicted by a French court to nine years in jail.
He then started on the Mumbai project. Later in 2009, Mir collaborated with Headley on an aborted plan to attack a newspaper office in Copenhagen, Denmark.
