Malian jihadist accused of Timbuktu war crimes

Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court on Tuesday accused a Malian jihadist of a war crime by unleashing "a callous assault" on the centuries-old world heritage site of Timbuktu.

The 14 mausoleums in Mali’s northern Timbuktu that had been destroyed by Islamic extremists three years ago have been restored.

"We must stand up to the destruction and defacing of our common heritage," said chief ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda as she unveiled a single charge of war crimes against Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi.

"Humanity's collective consciousness was shocked by the destruction of these sites. Such an attack must not go unpunished," she told the Hague-based tribunal, set up in 2002 to try the world's worst crimes.


Faqi's lawyers defended their client as "an intelligent, reasonable and educated man" who had sought to do good in response to a "divine message." Faqi, aged about 40, is the first jihadist to appear before the ICC and the first person to face a war crimes charge for an attack on a global historic and cultural monument.
Prosecution for the 2012 attack on the ancient Malian shrines comes amid a global outcry over the razing by the so-called Islamic State group of sites in Iraq and Syria that bear testament to the world's collective history.

Prosecutors are seeking to persuade the three judges that there is enough evidence to proceed to a trial. A member of an Islamic court set up by the Malian 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.

Prosecutors alleged the jihadists set upon the shrines with pick-axes and iron bars, as well as vehicles, in what Bensouda said was a "callous assault on the dignity of an entire population and their cultural identity."

Founded between the 11th and 12th centuries by Tuareg tribes, Timbuktu, located about 1 000km from Mali's capital Bamako, has been dubbed "the city of 333 saints" and the "Pearl of the Desert."