Pak court orders investigating agency to submit details of slain Taliban chief's properties

An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan has asked the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to submit details of the attachment of the properties of Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour, who was killed in a US drone strike in 2016.

The Karachi-based court on Saturday ordered the agency to provide details of Mansour's attached properties he had reportedly purchased in Karachi, Quetta and Peshawar using fake documents before his death.

The court also directed the agency to submit a report on the proclamation of the slain Taliban leader's two alleged accomplices, who are absconding in a terror financing and money laundering case filed in July, 2019.

The hearing in the case has been adjourned till April 20.

Mansour was killed in a US drone strike inside Pakistan's restive Balochistan province on May 21, 2016. He assumed the militant group's leadership in July 2015, replacing Taliban founder and the one-eyed reclusive long-time spiritual head Mullah Mohammad Omar who died in 2013.

The FIA had booked Mansour, Akhtar Mohammad and Amaar in a case lodged under section 11H (pertaining to fund raising and money laundering) of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, and also charged them with sections under the Pakistan Penal Code, including cheating and forgery.

The Afghan Taliban leader had allegedly bought five properties on fake identity.

According to the final charge-sheet submitted to the administrative judge of the anti-terrorism courts on July 25, 2019, Mansour had purchased the properties in the name of Mohammad Wali and Gul Mohammad.

The properties include four flats in Karachi  and a 441.67-square-yard plot in the financial hub.