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Mali: ICC - Mali Fighter Jailed for Destroying Timbuktu Sites
[All Africa] The  International Criminal Court... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ... (ICC) has sentenced a former Malian fighter to nine years in prison for destroying shrines and historic sites in Timbuktu during Mali's 2012 conflict. In a landmark judgement experts hope will send a strong message to safeguard the world's ancient monuments, Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi become on Tuesday the first person to be convicted of cultural destruction as a war crime by the ICC. "The chamber unanimously finds that Mr al-Mahdi is guilty of the crime of attacking protected sites as a war crime," judge Raul Pangalangan said at the tribunal in the Hague. During a two-day trial in August Mahdi asked for forgiveness, urged all Moslems to not follow his example and said he had been swept up in an "evil wave" by al-Qaeda and the Ansar Dine ...a mainly Tuareg group that controlled areas of Mali's northern desert together with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and MUJAO in early 2012... gangs that briefly seized control of the ancient sites in the city of Timbuktu. As part of a plea agreement, the prosecution and the defence requested a sentence of between nine and 11 years in prison. However, death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate... the judges were free to ignore the recommendation and hand down a sentence of up to 30 years. Mahdi had admitted to charges of involvement in the destruction of historic mausoleums in the North African city. Prosecutors said he led a group of Despite Timbuktu's reverence as the epicentre of Islamic learning during Mali's 14th-century golden age, armed fighters condemned the land as idolatrous. During the trial, prosecutor Fatou Bensouda compared the attacks to the smashing of monuments in the Syrian city of Palmyra by the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS, also known as ISIS) and the 2001 destruction of the Afghan Bamiyan ...a place in Afghanistan that used to have some historically interesting statues of the Buddha carved into a mountainside. Then the holy men showed up and now all they have is some big holes... Buddha statues by the Taliban. Archaeologists hope, in light of the prevalent war on art, that the trial will send a hard-hitting message to groups that wrecking culturally cherished artefacts will not go unpunished. Posted by: Fred 2016-09-28 |
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