LAHORE: An anti-terrorism court on Saturday delayed announcement of decision in two of the cases of alleged terror financing against Jamatud Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and his associates.

The court will now decide first a fresh application filed by the lawyers of the suspects demanding collective verdicts after completion of trials in all the cases pending against them.

A prosecutor opposed the application and argued that the court could announce its verdict in cases wherein arguments had been closed.

The court, however, deferred the decision and sought arguments on the application from both sides on Feb 11.

Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) had lodged 23 cases against the JuD leaders on charges of terror financing.

In these cases, the defence counsel had taken a stance denying allegations against the JuD leaders as baseless and a result of international pressure on Pakistan government. He said the accused had been charged in false cases by wrongly attributing as leaders of banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). He claimed that the leaders had been arrested in light of the UN Security Council’s resolution No. 1267.

He said it was an admitted fact supported by superior courts’ decisions that the accused persons had already quit the LeT before the organisation was declared proscribed in 2002. The counsel alleged that the CTD registered the cases without any substantive evidence.

Published in Dawn, February 9th, 2020