WASHINGTON DC: The United States on Friday expressed deep concerns over the release of banned Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) leader Hafiz Saeed from house arrest in Pakistan.
Earlier in the day, the LeT Chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed was released from house arrest, two days after the Lahore High Court (LHC) rejected the Punjab government’s request to extend his detention.
“The United States is deeply concerned that Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) leader Hafiz Saeed has been released from house arrest in Pakistan,” the US State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert said in a statement in Washington DC on Friday.
The State Department Spokesperson said that LeT is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization responsible for the death of hundreds of innocent civilians in terrorist attacks including a number of American citizens.
The Spokesperson said that the Pakistani government should make sure that he is arrested and charged for his crimes.
Hafiz Saeed had been placed under house arrest in Lahore on January 31, 2017. However his detention was later kept on being extended multiple times.
In May 2008, the United States Department of the Treasury designated Hafiz Saeed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist under Executive Order 13224.
Hafiz Saeed was also individually designated by the United Nations under UNSCR 1267 in December 2008 following the November 2008 Mumbai attack in which 166 people including six American citizens were killed.
LeT and several of its front organizations, leaders, and operatives remain under both State Department and Treasury Department sanctions.
Since 2012, the United States has offered a $10 million reward for information that brings Hafiz Saeed to justice, the State Department statement said.
