WASHINGTON: The United State has renewed its call for Pakistan to arrest and prosecute Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) founder Hafiz Saeed to the “fullest extent of the law”.

The call echoed at the US State Department’s daily news briefing on Thursday afternoon when an Indian journalist accused Islamabad of showing reverence to the cleric because Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi referred to him as “Hafiz sahib” earlier this week.

State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said Washington considered “Hafiz Saeed sahib” — mock quoting the phrase the reporter used — “a terrorist, a part of a foreign terrorist organisation”.

She said that Hafiz Saeed “was the mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks which killed many people, including Americans and that’s how he should be treated.

“We believe that this individual should be prosecuted. The Pakistani government released him from house arrest not that long ago. We believe he should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Ms Nauert added.

Rejecting honorific ‘sahib’ used for LeT chief, Washington says he is mastermind of Mumbai attacks

The US official recalled that Hafiz Saeed had been listed by the Al Qaeda Sanctions Committee under the UNSC Resolution 1267 because of his affiliation with LeT, which is also a designated foreign terrorist organisation.

Ms Nauert said Washington had “certainly seen” reports about Prime Minister Abbasi using the honorific ‘sahib’ for the LeT founder in an interview with a Pakistani television channel, in which he also said there was no case against the cleric.

“We have made our points and our concerns to the Pakistani government very clear. We believe that this individual should be prosecuted,” she said. “I just want to remind people of that, of who this individual is.”

The United States offered a $10 million bounty for Hafiz Saeed and demanded his immediate re-arrest and prosecution when a court in Pakistan released him in November. Pakistan, however, placed Hafiz Saeed under house arrest after the release.

At the briefing, a Pakistani journalist referred to recent news reports about a top US general assuring Islamabad that the current tensions in US-Pakistan relations were temporary and that US forces had no intention to attack alleged terrorist sanctuaries inside Pakistan.

Gen Joseph Votel, Commander US Central Command, who conveyed this assurance in a telephone call to Pakistan Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa earlier this month, is not the only top American general to do so.

Last week Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen Joseph Dunford said he was committed to the US-Pakistan relationship, which had been strained since early January when Washington suspended US security assistance to Islamabad over its alleged links to the Haqqani network.

“Do we agree on everything right now? No, we don’t. But are we committed to a more effective relationship with Pakistan? We are. And I’m not giving up on that,” Gen Dunford said.

Pointing to an obvious contradiction between her statement and those of senior US generals, the journalist asked Ms Nauert if various departments of the US administration were on the same page on their relations with Pakistan.

“I would say, administration-wide, that we were all on the same page with our relationship,” Ms Nauert said.

Published in Dawn, January 20th, 2018