26/11 plotter dies in Pakistan: Who was Abdul Rehman Makki?

Shadow of Hafiz Saeed

Makki was a virtual shadow of Hafiz Saeed before the latter was jailed for 36 years in 2019. Subsequently, he continued to front for Saeed, much like he had done for more than a decade with the LeT/Jamat-ud-Dawa leader listed by the UN Security Council as a terrorist after the 2008 Mumbai attacks, and constantly in and out of house arrest.

Wearing his trademark Pashtun cap, Makki would be a silent presence at the court hearings of Saeed’s petitions challenging his detention at the time under the Maintenance of Public Order.

A fiery speaker, Makki had also been a regular at the February Kashmir Solidarity Day rallies in Islamabad. At one such rally in February 2010, two years after the Mumbai attacks, Makki threatened “rivers of blood” in India for not handing over Kashmir to Pakistan, and threatened to seize it by force. He made a similar speech later that year.

Like his more infamous brother-in-law, he too uses the title Hafiz, an honorific for someone who has memorised the Quran, as well as the title of Naib Emir of JuD.

Avoided imprisonment in Pakistan

Makki escaped designation under UNSC Resolution 1267 in 2008, when both Saeed as well as the LeT front organisation JuD were listed. Resolution 1267 provides for sanctions against individuals and entities that support or finance the acts or activities of ISIL, Al-Qaida, associated individuals, groups, undertakings and entities.

Months later, his speeches threatening violence in India earned him a place in the US Treasury Department list of designated and sanctioned terrorists in November 2010. “Treasury also acted against Hafiz Abdul Rahman Makki, head of LeT’s political affairs department, for acting for or on behalf of LET,” the department said at the time, adding that Makki helped raise funds for LeT, including “Approximately $248,000 to an LeT training camp and approximately $165,000 to an LeT-affiliated madrassa.”

A bounty of $2 million was also offered for information about him, although this did not send him into hiding. He strode into courtrooms in Lahore and Islamabad with Saeed’s lawyer, cadres of JuD, and other admirers on hearing days, and sat in on the proceedings.

He and Saeed also jointly petitioned the Lahore High Court in 2014 challenging a bounty of $10 million declared by the US for information about Saeed. At the time, Saeed was preparing to transition into a full-time politician, and the two men said the US bounties were a pressure tactic “at the behest of India”.

Makki was among the six acquitted by the Lahore High Court in November 2021 of charges of terror funding through a LeT front organisation, a charity called Al Anfal. The Counter Terrorism Department of the Punjab Police in Pakistan had filed over 40 cases against several members of the JuD, including Makki and Saeed, and a lower court had sentenced Makki to six months imprisonment. Saeed was convicted in several of the cases for a total of 36 years. He is incarcerated at Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail.

Designated as global terrorist in 2023

The crackdown against the LeT/JuD in Pakistan began in 2017, under pressure from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a watchdog organisation meant to check terrorist financing and money laundering. Like several times before, Saeed was placed under house arrest, and released later that year. The next year, Pakistan proscribed JuD under its own 1997 Anti-Terror Act, amended as the Anti-Terrorism Ordinance, 2018.

However, FATF grey listed Pakistan that year and asked it to do more. More crackdowns followed on LeT/JuD and Jaish-e-Mohammed, as well as mosques and charities associated with them. Many charities were banned. Hundreds were arrested.

At risk of being blacklisted — being put in a list of countries that the FATF considers to be non-cooperative in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing — Pakistan arrested Saeed once again in July 2019. According to Dawn, prior to his arrest, 23 FIRs had been registered against him and other JuD leaders including Abdul Rehman Makki, at police stations in Lahore, Gujranwala, Multan, Faisalabad and Sargodha. Makki was arrested for hate speech in May 2019.

Unlike Saeed, however, Makki escaped conviction. In June 2022, China put on hold, at the last moment, a joint proposal by India and the US to list Makki under the 1267 Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council. The India-US attempts to designate Makki came at a time when the FATF was considering removing Pakistan from its grey list. Pakistan was finally taken off the list in October 2022.

Makki was finally designated as a global terrorist in 2023, although he did not consequently face arrest in Pakistan.

This explainer borrows from two articles published previously in 2022 and 2023.