The United States has called for Hafiz Saeed\u2019s prosecution \u201cto the fullest extent of the law\u201d, following Pakistan\u2019s Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi\u2019s remark that no action could be taken against the UN-designated terrorist.<\/p>\n
Abbasi, during an interview to Geo TV on Tuesday, referred to Saeed as \u2018sahib\u2019 or \u2018sir\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no case against Hafiz Saeed sahib in Pakistan. Only when there is a case can there be action,\u201d Abbasi said when asked why there was no action against Saeed.<\/p>\n
Reacting strongly to the comments, State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said the US believes that Saeed should be prosecuted and they have told Pakistan as much.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe that he should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. He is listed by the UNSC 1267, the Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee for targeted sanctions due to his affiliation with Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is a designated foreign terror organisation,\u201d Nauert told reporters at her daily news conference on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have made our points and concerns to the Pakistani government very clear. We believe that this individual should be prosecuted,\u201d Nauert said.<\/p>\n
Responding to a question, Nauert said the US has \u201ccertainly seen\u201d the reports about Abbasi\u2019s comment on Saeed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe regard him as a terrorist, a part of a foreign terrorist organisation. He was the mastermind, we believe, of the 2008 Mumbai attacks which killed many people, including Americans as well,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Saeed, the chief of the Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD), was released from house arrest in Pakistan in November.<\/p>\n
The US has labelled JuD the \u201cterrorist front\u201d for the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a group Saeed founded in 1987. LeT was responsible for carrying the 2008 Mumbai attack that killed 166 people.<\/p>\n
Acknowledging that the US has had some challenging times with the government of Pakistan recently, Nauert said the Trump Administration expects Pakistan to do a lot more to address terrorism issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s something that we\u2019ve been very clear about all along. You know the news that we had that came out a couple weeks ago about our decision to withhold some of the security funding for Pakistan,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Nauert said the entire administration is on the same page on the issue of US-Pakistan relationship.<\/p>\n
Early this month, the US suspended about $2 billion worth of security assistance to Pakistan accusing it of not doing enough in the fight against terrorism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The United States has called for Hafiz Saeed\u2019s prosecution \u201cto the fullest extent of the law\u201d, following Pakistan\u2019s Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi\u2019s remark that no action could be taken against the UN-designated terrorist. Abbasi, during an interview to Geo TV on Tuesday, referred to Saeed as \u2018sahib\u2019 or \u2018sir\u2019. \u201cThere is no case against […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19232,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19231"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19233,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19231\/revisions\/19233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}