Jamaat ud-Dawa calls itself a charity, and seeks an air of legitimacy in providing “social services.” But as is the case with Hamas and Hizballah, the jihadist agenda is always the on other side of the coin from the “charitable” outreach undertaken under various names. And Hafiz Mohammed Saeed will soon be free to spread more… “charity.”
“Pakistani court orders Mumbai-linked cleric freed,” by Rohan Sullivan for the Associated Press, June 2:
ISLAMABAD — The founder of the group India blames for last year’s Mumbai siege was ordered freed in a court ruling Tuesday that raised new tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors and drew criticism of Pakistan’s commitment to fighting terrorism.
The ruling to end the six-month house arrest of Hafiz Mohammed Saeed comes at a time when Washington and other Western allies would prefer that Pakistan focus on dislodging Taliban militants in the border region with Afghanistan “” rather than its decades-old rivalry with India.
It also comes as Richard Holbrooke, President Barak Obama’s special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, is due in Islamabad Wednesday for talks on the month-old military offensive to drive Taliban militants from the Swat Valley region in the northwest.
In the eastern city of Lahore, a three-judge High Court panel ruled that Saeed, a hardline Islamic cleric detained since a December crackdown in response to the Mumbai attack, could be held no longer because there was no evidence against him, his lawyer A.K. Dogar told reporters.
The court did not immediately make its findings public.
Saeed stayed within the compound of his home near Lahore after the ruling, and it was not clear if there were further formalities to be completed before he could leave. Attorney General Sardar Latif Khosa said the government was considering an appeal, but needed time to study the judgment.
Saeed is the chief of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, an organization he says is a charity to help impoverished and disaster-stricken Pakistanis. The United Nations has designated the group a front for the notorious Lashkar-e-Taiba and says it is a terrorist group in its own right. […]
“We are unhappy that Pakistan does not show the degree of seriousness and commitment that it should to bring to justice perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attack,” India’s Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram told reporters in New Delhi….