French inattention triggered the destruction of Timbuktu.
The destruction of shrines in Mali’s historic city of Timbuktu was caused by the French colonisers’ “negligence,” according to the International Criminal Court.
A police commander charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Hague-based tribunal is suspected of playing a crucial role during the jihadist occupation of the city known as the “Pearl of the Desert” in 2012-13.
“The events of 2012 are the product of French colonisers’ corruption and ineptitude,” Melinda Taylor, representing Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud, stated.
“The state of Mali was a fiction constructed by French occupiers that only existed on paper, never in reality,” Taylor said in his opening statement to the judges.
According to tribal and religious norms, the French left the “north of the country to fend for themselves.”
The terrorist group Ansar Dine, an Al-Qaeda-linked party that dominated Mali in 2012 before being driven out by a French-led multinational intervention, captured Timbuktu.
During the occupation, jihadists desecrated 14 of the town’s well-known mausoleums of venerated Muslim saints with pickaxes.
According to Taylor, Al Hassan “should not be condemned because he happened to live in the wrong area at the wrong time and because of his ethnicity.”
“The question is not whether these crimes were perpetrated in Timbuktu, but whether the individual in front of you should be held accountable for these crimes,” she continued.
Prosecutors claim Al Hassan, 44, was a prominent player in the militants’ police and judicial system, which they established after exploiting an ethnic Tuareg revolt in 2012 to seize cities in Mali’s troubled north.
Prosecutors said Al Hassan committed “unimaginable crimes,” including personally overseeing floggings and amputations, as well as arranging for women and girls to be forced to marry militants as part of a system of gender-based persecution.
He is the second Islamist to face trial at the ICC over the destruction of Timbuktu’s shrines, following a landmark 2016 ruling by the world’s only permanent war crimes court.
Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi was convicted of planning attacks on the UNESCO World Heritage site and sentenced to nine years in prison.
