Legal assistance: Saeed’s plea adjourned indefinitely

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court has indefinitely adjourned a petition from Jamatud Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed seeking government assistance for his defence against a civil suit in the United States, after a New York court stopped hearing the case. Saeed’s counsel told the court at the onset of proceedings that the case in the US had stalled and the LHC could adjourn the petition indefinitely. Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial accepted the suggestion. In his petition, Saeed had asked the court to direct the federal government to give him legal assistance in the case in the US, where he – along with other Lashkar-i-Taiba officials and Pakistani officials including a former ISI chief– had been sued for alleged involvement in the Mumbai attacks of November 2008, by relatives of Americans killed in the attacks. Saeed submitted that he headed a charity, the Jamatud Dawa, and had no links with Laskhar-i-Taiba or the Mumbai attacks. He said that the government was assisting the former ISI chief and other officials in the case in New York and, as a citizen of Pakistan, he deserved the same help.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 25^th, 2013.