Pakistani court sentences 3 men on terror financing charges

MULTAN, Pakistan (AP) — A Pakistani court on Wednesday convicted on terror financing charges three associates of a radical cleric wanted by Washington for his role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Two of the militants, Malik Zafar Iqbal and Abdul Salam Bhattvi, were sentenced to five years in jail, while the third, Abdul Rehman Makki, received an 18-month sentence from the court in Lahore, the counter-terrorism department said in a statement.

The three men are close associates of Hafiz Saeed, the founder and chief of the outlawed group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was blamed by India for the Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people.

The three men were found guilty of collecting funds for Saeed’s charity organizations, Jamaat-ud-Dawa and Falah-e-Insaniat, which are alleged fronts for Lashkar-e-Taiba and

Saeed has been serving a 5 1/2-year prison sentence since February after being convicted of financing terrorism.

Since gaining independence in 1947, Pakistan and India have fought three wars, two of them over Kashmir, which is split between them and claimed by both in its entirety.

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Source: AP