Hafiz Muhammad Saeed (Urdu: حافظ محمد سعید, born 5 June 1950)[4] is a Pakistani Islamic preacher and a militant convicted of terrorism.
[18][19] In April 2012, the United States placed a bounty of US$10 million[20] on Saeed for his role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 civilians.
[30] As told by him, his father, Maulana Kamal-ud-Din, a religious scholar, landlord and farmer, along with his family started migrating from Ambala and Hisar, East Punjab (now in Haryana) and reached Pakistan in around four months in the autumn of 1947.
He was placed under house arrest on 31 October 2002 after his wife Maimoona Saeed sued the province of Punjab and the Pakistan federal government for what she claimed was an illegal detention.
[43][44] After the 2008 Mumbai attacks, India submitted a formal request to the U.N. Security Council to put the group Jamaat-ud-Dawa and Saeed on the list of individuals and organisations sanctioned by the United Nations for association with terrorism.
India said that the close links between the organisations, as well as the 2,500 offices and 11 seminaries that Jamaat-ud-Dawa maintains in Pakistan, "are of immediate concern with regard to their efforts to mobilise and orchestrate terrorist activities.
"[46] On 11 December 2008, Hafiz Muhammed Saeed was again placed under house arrest when the United Nations declared Jamaat-ud-Dawa to be an LeT front.
Deputy Attorney General Shah Khawar told the Associated Press that "Hafiz Saeed at liberty is a security threat.
"[49] On 25 August 2009, Interpol issued a red notice against Saeed, along with Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, in response to Indian requests for his extradition.
Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, one of two judges hearing the case, observed "In the name of terrorism we cannot brutalise the law.
[54] On 29 December 2023, India formally requested extradition of Hafiz Saeed for his involvement in 2008 Mumbai Attacks [1] [55] The United States declared two Lashkar-e-Tayyiba leaders—Nazir Ahmad Chaudhry and Muhammad Hussein Gill—specially designated global terrorists.
The State Department also maintained LeT's designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation and added the following aliases to its listing of LeT: Jama’at-ud-Dawa, Al-Anfal Trust, Tehrik-i-Hurmat-i-Rasool, and Tehrik-i-Tahafuz Qibla Awwal.
[56][57] Lashkar has been keeping focus on India and Saeed is among those who are thought to have helped Pakistan in capturing important al-Qaeda members like Abu Zubaydah.
"[59] He subsequently stated that he was ready to face "any American court" to answer the charges and added that if Washington wanted to contact him, they knew where he was.
[63] On 27 September 2019, during the United Nations General Assembly, USA asked Pakistan to prosecute Saeed, Masood Azhar and other UN-designated terrorists.
Pakistan's national security adviser Moeed Yusuf said that while the three arrested were Pakistani citizens who planted the bomb, it was suspected that "India was behind the attack".
[72] Saeed has criticised Pakistani leaders and has stated that they should aspire to be more like British Prime Minister David Cameron and London Mayor Boris Johnson.
He had declared his admiration for the British Conservative Party along with several Tory MPs when he lodged a petition to the Lahore High Court calling for public officials in Pakistan to tone down their privileged lifestyles.
According to The Daily Telegraph, Saeed wrote in the petition that while Pakistan's political elite were 'living like kings and princes in palatial government houses,' Britain's prime minister lived in a 'four-bedroom flat.'
He added, 'When the sun never set on the British Empire, the chief executive of that great country lived in the same house of a few marlas in a small street.
[82] Saeed demanded that the United States take serious notice of this statement by the Indian home minister regarding Hindu terrorist camps in India.