Rebel gets 9 years jail for Timbuktu destruction

the hague — War crimes judges on Tuesday sentenced a former militatn rebel who admitted wrecking shrines during Mali’s 2012 conflict to nine years in prison, in the first such case to focus on destruction of cultural heritage.

Human rights groups and international legal experts hope Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi’s case in the ICC may serve as a deterrent to a kind of devastation that continues to be a feature of global conflicts yet has gone largely unpunished. Al Mahdi expressed remorse for his involvement in the destruction of 10 mausoleums and religious sites in Timbuktu dating from Mali’s 14th-century golden age. The sites, nine of them on the Unesco World Heritage list, “had an emotional and symbolic meaning for the residents of Timbuktu”, the panel of judges at The Hague said.

By striking at their most meaningful religious sites, Mahdi participated in “a war activity aimed at breaking the soul of the people,” said a Judge. —