Al Mahdi, who was handed to the ICC by Niger late a year ago, 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.
Advertisement
Although Mahdi is suspected of committing other crimes, legal analysts 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.
He has asked the court to pardon his crimes and asked the people of Mali for forgiveness and only look at him as a son who lost his way.
As the head of the “Hisbah” or the “Manners Brigade” he had ordered the shrines to be destroyed, ICC prosecutors say.
Among a group of outsiders, Mahdi stood out for his local knowledge while also being a fluent Arabic speaker, and his scholarly background lent a veneer of credence to the Islamists’ call to destroy several UNESCO-listed sites they considered idolatrous. The court’s chief prosecutor has likened the case to the destruction past year by Islamic State extremists of historic ruins in the Syrian city of Palmyra.
Last September prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said, “Such attacks affect humanity as a whole”.
Aged about 40, Mahdi is also the first Islamist extremist to appear before the tribunal launched in The Hague in 2002 to try the world’s worst crimes, and the first facing allegations stemming from the conflict in Mali.
The guilty plea was a landmark for the court, which has struggled to bring suspects to justice since its establishment in 2002.
Prosecutors say Al Mahdi was a member of the Ansar Dine militant group that took part in occupying Timbuktu in 2012 as Islamist militants took power in most of northern Mali.
Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi expressed his “deep regret” at the beginning of a trial which is the first of its kind to cite destroying cultural artifacts as a war crime. The buildings – UNESCO World Heritage sites – had housed the tombs of Muslim scholar-saints since the 14th century.
“What must it have felt like in that fateful day in 2012 … to witness the wanton destruction of that cultural heritage, a deliberate assault on one’s identity, spiritual beliefs and prized cultural possessions?” she said.
Islamist fighters desecrated the centuries-old shrines using pickaxes and chisels after seizing the city in 2012.
Advertisement
In March, Ahmad was charged for “war crimes of intentionally directing attacks against historic monuments and buildings dedicated to religion”, according to the court.
