Don't be fooled by PAK court's 32-year sentence to Hafiz Saeed; here's why

This isn't the first time LeT chief and 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed has been convicted and sentenced by a Pakistan court. As per the latest conviction, Hafiz Saeed was handed down 32 years jail time by an anti-terror court in Pakistan in two cases.

Besides, the court also ordered all of Saeed's assets to be seized and a penalty of PKR3,40,000 was imposed. According to reports, a madrasa and a mosque allegedly built by Hafiz Saeed will be taken over, as part of the sentence.

The UN-designated terrorist was already sentenced to 36 years in prison in five such cases. With this new sentence, the total imprisonment adds up to 68 years, which will run concurrently.

Why these sentencing mean nothing?

Pakistan filed charges against Hafeez Saeed only after Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global watchdog for terror funding and money laundering put the country under 'grey list'. Pakistan has since been trying to convince FATF to get off the grey list, and Hafiz Saeed has been its biggest trump card.

In December 2020, Pakistani anti-terrorism court sentenced Hafiz Saeed, the leader of the banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) to more than 15 years in prison after he was convicted in another case. This was shortly after Saeed and three others were convicted by an ATC on November 19 in two separate terror-financing cases. In the November 2020 verdict, the court also forfeited property possessed by Saeed, besides imposing a fine of 110,000 PKR. In February same year, Saeed was convicted in the two cases and sent to jail for five-and-a-half years.

Banned by the UN Security Council after the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, Saeed faces 23 terror cases in Pakistan alone. Putting the cases and sentencing aside, which are clearly a show put on by Pakistan for global spectators, the treatment Hafiz Saeed has been getting is nothing short of a free man.

Saeed has been seen in and out of the Lahore Anti-Terrorism Court like a well-protected asset - and in a cavalcade of sophisticated SUVs instead of a prison van. Even the 2020 verdict in which the judge ruled that the sentence would run concurrently and the detention of the convicts during the trial period would be counted as "an undergone sentence."

This is besides being able to go out of detention under so-called "house arrest." Even for public display, Hafeez doesn't confine to the rules of house arrest. He has been seen roaming freely across the country while attending events and speeches where India is targeted with impunity.

This is the treatment a global terrorist gets in Pakistan and that too in the public eye. One can only imagine the luxuries he enjoys under detention, which is official since 2019.

The game of Saeed's "arrest. free. repeat" - as Pakistani journalist Taha Siddiqui had once pointed out - has continued since last few years, especially when the date of a FATF hearing is near. In March, it was decided that Pakistan remain on FATF's grey list till June 2022.

(Additional inputs from IANS)