“I plead guilty”, al-Mahdi told the ICC after the solo charge of cultural destruction was read to him.
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According to Situ Research, the interdisciplinary approach to this project represents an emerging strategy in the application of worldwide criminal law.
Although al-Mahdi is suspected of committing other crimes, legal experts said the case had been narrowly focused to highlight the growing awareness in worldwide justice that cultural destruction is not only a war crime but also an intrinsic part of warfare aimed at destroying an opponent’s history and identity.
Mahdi said he would accept the will of the court “with pain and with a broken heart”, but said he was “pinning my hope on the fact that the punishment meted out to me will be sufficient for the people of Timbuktu and Mali to offer forgiveness, for mankind to offer forgiveness”.
He added Muslims should not get involved in such acts that he had been as it does no good to humanity.
In the first case of its kind, the Islamic extremist Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi has today (22 August), pleaded guilty to war crimes for destroying historic monuments in the ancient city of Timbuktu in northern Mali. During this time, Mahdi was allegedly a member of Ansar Eddine, a Tuareg movement with ties to the terrorist organization.
Al Mahdi, who was handed to the ICC by Niger late last year, has previously told the court he is a graduate of the teachers’ institute in Timbuktu and had been a civil servant in the education department from 2011. The Guardian states that the rebels imposed sharia law, outlawed music and whipped people who refused to abide by their code.
“The courts have been slow to recognize this, but there is a clear link between crimes committed against people and attacks on their cultural heritage”, said Andras Riedlmayer, a scholar of Islamic art and architecture at Harvard. “He [Mahdi] was fully aware of the importance of the mausoleums, and he showed determination and focus in his supervision of operations”.
Timbuktu reportedly holds over 700,000 manuscripts dating back 600 years, and according to UNESCO, over 4,000 were destroyed in the conflict. Documents on astronomy, medicine and mathematics, among other subjects, were destroyed in the blaze but served as an indicator that science was well underway in Africa before European settlers arrived, ABS reports.
Bensouda told AFP later that it was a “milestone trial”, adding Mahdi was cooperating with prosecutors. “This worrying trend must be stopped in its tracks”, she said. “History will not be generous to our failure to care”.
He faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison, but prosecutors agreed to request a sentence of nine to 11 years as part of a plea agreement.
Mahdi was indicted and arrested last September. However, the ICC doesn’t have jurisdiction in those countries to bring charges against the perpetrators, the Washington Post reports.
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Bensouda said she’s looking to bring additional charges against Mahdi. She said numerous women had been forced to marry jihadis, and that others were captured and used as sexual slaves by the foreign fighters.
