Hafiz Saeed indicted on ‘terror financing’

A Pakistani anti-terrorism court indicted Hafiz Saeed, the alleged mastermind of deadly 2008 attacks in Mumbai, on terror financing charges yesterday, a government prosecutor and defence lawyer said. Defence lawyer Imran Gill said his client pleaded not guilty. The charges were read as the 70-year-old Saeed was present in court, prosecutor Abdur Rauf Watto told Reuters. "He has been charged for collecting funds for banned organizations, JuD and LeT," he said. Saeed is the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a militant group blamed by the United States and India for the four-day Mumbai siege, in which 160 people were killed.  The indictment came ahead of a world financial watchdog Financial Action Task Force (FATF) meeting early next year to decide whether to blacklist Pakistan for its failure to curb terror financing.