Top LeT man Sajid Mir quietly held, jailed in terror financing case.

ISLAMABAD -- As Pakistani officials ticked items off their to-do list for submission of report to Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on the implementation of the action plan for getting out of its 'grey-list', something that strengthened their case was the conviction and sentencing of top Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist Sajid Majeed Mir.

Mir, 44, who allegedly directed the 2008 Mumbai attacks, was sentenced by an anti-terrorism court in Lahore, in the first week of this month, to 15 and a half years in jail after convicting him in a terror financing case. He was also fined Rs420,000. He is currently serving sentence in Kot Lakhpat jail, according to a source.

It all happened so quietly that no one came to know about such an important court verdict in such a high-profile case, except for a very brief report in one of the newspapers, which too could not attract attention. His detention, which apparently took place in later part of April, was also kept away from media's prying eyes.

Pakistani authorities, it should be recalled, had in the past claimed he had died, but Western countries remained unconvinced and demanded proofs of his death. This issue rather became a major sticking point in FATF's assessment of Pakistan's progress on the action plan late last year. This was where things finally started moving in Mir's case leading to his 'arrest'.

His conviction and sentencing were, therefore, major achievements that Pakistani officials showcased in their progress report given to FATF on its action plan during the latest plenary.

It indeed helped in convincing FATF members that Pakistan had finished all the required tasks.

Weak prosecution and poor conviction rate of terrorists were major shortcomings that had all along hampered Pakistan's exit from the grey list.

According to FATF's June 2022 plenary outcomes, Pakistan had shown 'an upward trend' in investigation and prosecution of money laundering cases, besides demonstrating that terror financing cases against senior leaders and commanders of UN-designated terrorist groups were being pursued seriously.

The watchdog finally concluded that Pakistan had 'substantially completed' the two action plans, covering 34 items, and ordered an on-site visit by a technical team for verifying the implementation of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing, and ensuring that they were being sustained and backed by necessary political commitment.

Who is Sajid Mir?

Lahore-born Mir is mostly known...