Saad Aziz, who was awarded death sentence for his involvement in the Safoora bus attack and murder of human rights activist Sabeen Mahmud Thursday, had told Joint Investigation Team (JIT) members that the impetus for all this was the sectarian conflict in Yemen.
Saad was basically inspired by a video provided to him by a militant Abdullah Yusuf in which Houthi rebels were allegedly seen killing ‘women and children’ in Yemen.JIT Reported.
Tahir Minhas, Abdullah Mansoori and Umer, alias Hafeez, had started killing the passengers while he was making a video,Saad said adding that he didn’t kill any women or children in Safoora bus carnage.
Saad maintained that he and others killed Sabben Mahmud as she used muddy language against Maulana Abdul Aziz of Lal Masjid.
Saad who studied in Beaconhouse school attacked the same school twice.He got introduced to Ali Rehman of Unilever company at internship program and Ali brainwashed him.
Ali Rehman later introduced him to Haris who was part of Jamaat e Islami first but became associated with Al Qaida.
Meanwhile Saad completed his education from IBA Karachi.
It was Haris who sent him to Miranshah in 2011 for training. The JIT claimed that Saad had informed his parents that he was going for “training to Afghanistan”
After completion of 25 days training when others moved back Saad was asked to stay there by his teacher Ahmed Farooq.
Saad came back later,joined his restaurant business,got married in 2012 but remained in touch with Ali and Haris.He also wrote articles about Jihad.
Meanwhile Ali Rehman arranged a meeting of saad with Umer, alias Haider Abbas, alias Akif, who told him that “they had a lot of work to do” and asked Saad to join them.
Haris was totally unaware of all this that happened in these six months.
Finally in 2013, Umer arranged his meeting with Tahir Minhas.
Saad, Tahir and Umer met in Hyderabad in 2014 , where they along with another man Amir attacked a police van leaving three policemen dead..
The ISIS inspiration
Saad told the JIT that after weakening of Al Qaida and caliphate announcement in Iraq in 2014 by IS, Tahir Minhas, Haider Abbasi and himself were inspired by IS,They tried to join it but failed
Raja Umer Khattab of counter terrorism department apprehended Saad and his accomplices.
