Pakistan/India

Pakistan critical of court that set Mumbai suspect free

Article published on the 2009-06-03 Latest update 2009-06-05 15:19 TU

Pakistan says it will appeal against the court order to release Hafiz Mohamed Saeed, head of a charity that is considered as a terror group by the US and other western countries, and which India believes is linked to the Mumbai attacks of November 2008.

Pakistan on Wednesday vowed to appeal against a court order to release the head of a charity blacklisted in the West as a terror group and linked by India to the deadly Mumbai attacks.

Hafiz Mohammad Saeed is the head of Jamaat-ud-Dawa and in 1989 founded the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) group accused by India and Washington of killing 166 people in the Indian financial capital last year.

"We have received the detailed verdict of the court. Our legal advisers are studying it and we told them to file an appeal against this verdict," the law minister of Pakistan's Punjab province said.

Pakistan put Saeed and three of his co-leaders under house arrest in early December and publicly shut offices of the charity after the UN Security Council blacklisted the organisation as a terror group.

The United States also sees the charity as a terror group and a front for LeT.