ICC charges Malian over attacking historical sites in Timbutku
Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court (ICC) have charged a Malian Takfiri militant with war crimes over attacks on centuries-old shrines at the world heritage site of Timbuktu in 2012.
Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi, arrested in Niger and moved into ICC custody in The Hague in September 2015, will be the first Takfiri militant to appear before the ICC.
He will be the first person to face a main war crimes charge for an attack on a global historic and cultural monument.
“We must stand up to the destruction and defacing of our common heritage,” chief ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said as she unveiled a single war crimes charge against Faqi.
Bensouda said it was incumbent on the tribunal to ensure that those responsible for annihilating ancient sites are punished.
ICC prosecutors say Faqi was a leader of Ansar Dine, a mainly Tuareg group that captured Mali’s northern desert together with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and a third local group from early 2012 until 2013.
Faqi is said to have jointly ordered or carried out the destruction of nine mausoleums and Timbuktu’s fabled Sidi Yahia mosque in 2012.
The destruction of cultural and religious heritage is clearly set out in the ICC’s guiding Rome Statute as a war crime, Bensouda said.
Prosecutors are seeking to persuade the three judges that there is enough evidence against Faqi to proceed to a trial.
The news comes at a time when Takfiri Daesh terrorists are wrecking havoc in Syria and Iraq and destroying cultural and historic monuments in the Arab countries.
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