ICC sentences Timbuktu war criminal to 10 years

THE HAGUE – The International Criminal Court on Wednesday sentenced a jihadist police chief to 10 years in jail for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during a reign of terror in the fabled Malian city of Timbuktu.
READ: ICC convicts Timbuktu jihad police chief of war crimes
ICC judges had convicted Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud, 47, in June for crimes including torture when he was a member of the feared Ansar Dine Islamic militant group that seized control of Timbuktu for almost a year from early 2012.
The sentence “is proportionate to the gravity of the crimes and the individual circumstances and culpability of Mr Al Hassan,” said presiding judge Kimberly Prost.
“It adequately reflects the strong condemnation by the international community for the crimes committed by him and acknowledges the significant harm and suffering caused to the victims,” she added.
Wearing all-white traditional west African robes, his head wrapped in a turban, Al Hassan listened intently, his hands folded in his lap.
He showed no emotion after the judge read the sentence, before being led away by ICC security guards.
Among the crimes committed by Al Hassan were “cruel treatment as a war crime” for flogging one person, “mutilation” for amputating a hand, and “torture as a crime against humanity and a war crime”.
Prost ruled that Al Hassan contributed to the Ansar Dine regime, whose actions had a “traumatic effect on the population of Timbuktu”.
The people “lived in an atmosphere of fear, violence, oppression, humiliation, and remains present in the minds of victims in a deep-seated trauma”, she said.
During the Ansar Dine rule, women were arrested then raped in detention, the court heard.
There were also brutal floggings in the central square in front of crowds including children, as well as a public amputation by machete.
Al Hassan was, however, acquitted in June of the war crimes of rape and sexual slavery, as well as the crime against humanity of forced marriage.
Although the court ruled that certain crimes of sexual violence had taken place during the period, he was not found to bear responsibility for them.
He was also acquitted of the war crime of attacking protected objects.
– ‘Pearl of the desert’ –
Founded between the fifth and 12th centuries by Tuareg tribes, Timbuktu is known as the “Pearl of the Desert” and “The City of 333 Saints” for the number of Muslim sages buried there during a golden age of Islam.
But jihadists who swept into the city considered the shrines idolatrous and destroyed them with pickaxes and bulldozers.
The militants from the Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Ansar Dine groups exploited an ethnic Tuareg uprising in 2012 to take over cities in Mali’s volatile north.
Al Hassan is the second Malian jihadist suspect to be sentenced by the court in connection with Timbuktu.
Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi was sentenced to nine years in prison for his role in the destruction of Timbuktu’s shrines.
The sentence was later reduced by two years.
Also in the ICC’s sights over alleged atrocities in Timbuktu is Iyad Ag Ghaly, one of the top jihadist leaders in the Sahel.
Ag Ghaly is considered to be the leader of the Al-Qaeda-linked Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), which operates in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.
Also known as “Abou Fadl”, Ag Ghaly is wanted on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in Timbuktu, the ICC said.
These include murder, rape and sexual slavery, and attacks on religious and historic monuments.
The ICC made public a formal warrant for his arrest in June.
By Richard Carter