Hafiz Saeed pleaded not guilty on Friday in a second case on charges of financing terrorism, a government prosecutor and a defence lawyer said. Saeed, who was indicted on similar charges in another case on Dec 11, was presented in an anti-terrorism court in Lahore, prosecutor Abdur Rauf Watto told Reuters.

Defence lawyer Imran Gill said the second case was related to Saeed's charity operations. "The militant charities the accused ran collected illegal funds," Watto said.

Counterterrorism police arrested Saeed in July, days before a visit to Washington by Prime Minister Imran Khan.

The indictments came ahead of a meeting of world financial watchdog Financial Action Task Force (FATF) early next year that will decide whether to blacklist Pakistan for its failure to curb terror financing.