Ruling on Hafiz Saeed, who has a $10m US
bounty on his head, is likely to worsen Pakistani relations with Washington
By Sune
Engel Rasmussen
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Hafiz Saeed waves to
supporters as he leaves court in Lahore. Photograph:
Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images
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A Pakistani court has ordered the release of
Hafiz Saeed, an alleged mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, in a move
likely to worsen the country’s tattered relationship with the US.
The Islamist cleric, who heads Jamaat-ud-Dawa
(JuD) – listed by the UN as a terrorist group – and has a $10m(£7.5m) US bounty
on his head, is expected to be freed on Friday after less than a year in
detention.
Saeed thanked the judges of Lahore’s high
court in a video statement. “The lawyers of the court supported me tremendously
and I am so thankful to God for that,” he said. “This is a great step for
freedom for Pakistan.”
The US and India suspect Saeed of
masterminding the attacks in Mumbai, in which 10 gunmen ran rampage over
several days, killing 166 people. He was put under house arrest in January this
year having lived in the open for years.
On Wednesday the court in Lahore rejected a
request from the provincial government of Punjab for a 60-day extension to his
house arrest.
A prosecutor, Sattar Sahil, told Reuters:
“His previous detention for 30 days is over, which means he would be released
tomorrow.”
Government officials argued that prolonging
Saeed’s detention was necessary to avoid international sanctions and a halt to
foreign funding to the country.
Saeed denies involvement in terrorism and
claims the government punished him to pander to the whims of the US and India.
Members of JuD say it is a charity
organisation, but the US says it is a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, an anti-India
jihadi group that Saeed helped found in the 1990s.
Until he was detained in January along with
four aides under the country’s anti-terrorism legislation, Saeed’s freedom was
a source of friction between Washington and Islamabad.
But the courts were inevitably bound to set
him free at some point, said Cyril Almeida, a columnist and assistant editor at
the Dawn newspaper. More significant measures were needed to repair trust
between the US and Pakistan, he said.
“Band-aid solutions such as temporary
detention orders may buy some time but it only delays a final reckoning. On
groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, Pakistan and the US are on a collision course,”
Almeida said.
After Barack Obama failed to persuade
Pakistan to clamp down on militants plotting attacks on Afghanistan and India
from inside its borders, Donald Trump has taken a more aggressive stance.
“We can no longer be silent about Pakistan’s
safe havens for terrorist organisations,” Trump said when rolling out his
policy for south Asia in August, declaring that Pakistan would have “much to
lose” if it did not comply.
However, Trump’s sharp rhetoric was derided
across the Pakistani political spectrum, with officials scoffing at the
apparent lack of acknowledgement for their country’s sacrifices.
In recent months, Pakistan appears to have
taken small steps to appease the US. Its armed forces conducted a successful
operation to free a Canadian-American family from Taliban captivity in the
tribal areas, and it seems to have silently consented to the US upping drone
strikes on its territory, which reportedly have killed several prominent
militants.
Meanwhile, the government has banned
Lashkar-e Taiba and recently rebuffed attempts by a party affiliated with
Jamaat-ud-Dawa to register in local elections in Lahore and Peshawar.
Still, followers of Saeed rallied openly in
the streets in support of purportedly independent candidates, who did
relatively well in both cities.
Jamaat-ud-Dawa also vies for popular support
outside the ballot box, providing disaster relief and health services in places
where the state is largely absent, and leading the charge for Kashmiri
independence.
“I am fighting for the cause of Kashmir,
which is why India is after me,” Saeed said on Wednesday. “But we shall be
successful.”
Additional reporting by Nosheen Abbas
