Malian jihadist to face charges of razing Timbuktu shrines

THE HAGUE: An unprecedented war crimes case brought against a Malian jihadist for allegedly destroying centuries-old shrines at the world heritage site of Timbuktu opens at the International Criminal Court yesterday.

Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi will be the first jihadist to appear before the tribunal in The Hague, and the first person to face a main war crimes charge for an attack on a global historic and cultural monument.

A member of an Islamic court set up by the jihadists to enforce strict sharia law, Faqi is said to have jointly ordered or carried out the destruction of nine mausoleums and Timbuktu’s famous Sidi Yahia mosque dating back to the 15th and 16th centuries.

ICC prosecutors say he was a leader of Ansar Dine, a mainly Tuareg group, which held sway over Mali’s northern desert together with Al- Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and a third local group from early 2012 until being routed in a French-led intervention in January 2013.

Faqi will also be the first person to appear at the ICC on charges arising out of the violence which rocked the western African nation of Mali, where stretches of the remote north still remain out of government control.

“The people of Mali deserve justice for the attacks against their cities, their beliefs and their communities,” ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said at the time of Faqi’s arrest in Niger and transfer to the ICC in September 2015.

The charges he was facing were for “the most serious crimes,” she said.

They concerned “the destruction of i r replac eable h i s t or ic monuments” as well as “a callous assault on the dignity and identity of entire populations, and their religious and historical roots.” — AFP