While those kinds of crimes “have an immediate impact”, says Erica Bussey, a senior legal adviser to Amnesty International, “the consequences of cultural destruction go beyond the victims; it’s an attack on people’s cultural identity”.
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As his historic ICC trial started in The Hague on Monday, Ahmad al-Mahdi told judges he was entering the guilty plea “with deep regret and great pain” and advised Muslims around the world not to commit similar acts, saying “they are not going to lead to any good for humanity”.
Believing religious or historical artefacts to be idolatrous, Al-Mahdi led religious police to the holy sites and watched while they smashed them with pick-axes and crowbars, occasionally taking part himself.
Such “deliberate attacks on cultural property have become actual weapons of war”, ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda told the court.
He is accused of intentionally directing attacks against nine of Timbuktu’s mausoleums and the Sidi Yahia mosque during the takeover of the city by jihadists allied to al-Qaeda in 2012.
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.
A Malian armed fighter is facing the first ever court case against an individual charged with war crimes on a World Heritage site.
This is also the first time a defendant on trial at the ICC has admitted to his crimes.
As the head of the “Hisbah” or the “Manners Brigade” he had ordered the shrines to be destroyed, ICC prosecutors say.
In the build-up to the hearing, prosecutor Fatima Bensouda compared the attacks to Islamic State’s smashing of monuments in the Syrian city of Palmyra and the Taliban’s 2001 destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan.
“We do want to forgive Ahmad Al Madi, but we need to be sure that he is being honest during this trial”, said Diadié Hamadoun Maiga, a member of Timbuktu’s Islamic High Council who led a local crisis committee during the occupation.
Al-Mahdi admits he’s guilty and is asking for forgiveness for heading-up an al-Qaida-linked group that desecrated most of Timbuktu’s 16 historic mausoleums, along with ancient manuscripts and a mosque.
After the indictment, Mahdi addressed the Malian people: “I would like to seek the pardon of all the people of Timbuktu”.
Mahdi said, “It is also my hope that the years I will spend in prison will be source to purge the evil spirit that took me and I will keep my hopes high that the people will be able to forgive me”.
Much of the world’s cherished cultural and religious sites represent a common desire for self-reflection and an understanding of eternity.
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The judges recognised this, but also warned al-Mahdi that they were not necessarily bound by the deal and he faced a maximum term of 20 years.
