Pakistan Arrests Mumbai Attacks Plotter For Terrorism Financing

Pakistan has arrested Zaki ur Rehman Lakhvi, a leader of armed group Lashkar-e-Taiba LeT blamed by the United States and India for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, a counterterrorism official said. The arrest is in relation to terrorism financing, the official said on Saturday and not a specific attack. Proscribed organisation LeT leader Zaki ur Rehman Lakhvi has been arrested on charges of

terrorism financing, a spokesman for the Counter Terrorism Department CTD of Pakistan’s Punjab province said. The suspect is said to have been running a medical dispensary to collect and disburse funds for terrorism, the spokesman said. A sanctions committee of the United Nations Security Council says Lakhvi is LeT’s chief of operations and accuses him of being

active in a number of other regions and countries, including Chechnya, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iraq and Afghanistan. Indian authorities said the lone surviving attacker involved in the 2008 Mumbai siege, in which 166 people were killed, had told interrogators before his execution that the assailants were in touch with Lakhvi. India has long called on Pakistan to bring Lakhvi to trial

but Islamabad says New Delhi has not provided concrete evidence to try the LeT leader. He was first arrested in 2008 but was later released on bail. Imran Gill, Lakhvi’s lawyer confirmed the arrest and told the media his case would be heard next week. He did not respond to further questions. Another man that India says was the mastermind of the Mumbai siege, Hafiz

Saeed, was convicted by a Pakistani court on two charges of terrorism financing last year. Saeed denies involvement in the Mumbai attacks. Saeed was also designated a terrorist by the US Justice Department and carries a $10m reward on his head. Relations between Pakistan and India were strained after the attack on India’s financial hub in November 2008. The rival South Asian powers have fought two wars since gaining independence from Britain in 1947.