Welcoming the arrest of UN-designated terrorist Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi by Pakistan authorities, the United States on Tuesday urged Pakistan to hold him accountable for his involvement in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.
“We welcome Pakistan’s arrest of terrorist leader Zaki ur Rehman Lakhvi as an important step in holding him responsible for his role in supporting terrorism and its financing,” the United States Department of State Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs wrote on Twitter.
“We will follow his prosecution and sentencing closely and urge that he be held accountable for his involvement in the Mumbai attacks,” it added.
Lakhvi was arrested on Saturday by Pakistan’s Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) during a raid conducted in Lahore. The terrorist was behind the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks in 2008 wherein 166 people were killed and 300 were left injured.
Lakhvi was designated as a global terrorist by the United Nations under the United Nations Security Council Resolution in 2008 after the Mumbai attacks.
In April last year, Pakistan, which has long been accused of aiding and abetting terrorism, had removed about 1,800 names from its terrorist watchlist including that of 2008 Mumbai terror attack mastermind Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, according to data collected by castellum.aI, a New York-based regulatory technology company.
Lakhvi is accused of abetment to murder, attempted murder, planning and executing the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.
His arrest came weeks ahead of the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) planned reassessment of Pakistan’s efforts to counter terror financing. In October last year, the FATF retained Pakistan in its “grey list” for failing to fully deliver on an action plan to fight terror financing, and gave the country time till February to address what it said were “very serious deficiencies”.
