A Malian Islamist who helped run the police force imposing sharia law on Timbuktu
after the city was captured by militants in 2012 was sentenced to 10 years in prison by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Wednesday.
Judges said Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz, 47, had played a key role in the Islamic police set up by the Ansar Dine Islamist group in the city on the fringe of the Sahara Desert.
He had taken part in or been present at many public floggings that left deep psychological wounds on victims and onlookers, the judges said.
“This regime and these acts had a traumatic effect of the population of Timbuktu,” they said.
Al Hassan, who had pleaded not guilty to the charges at the start of his case in 2020, was present in court clad in all white with a traditional West African robe and headdress. He
showed no emotion as the sentence was read out.
He was acquitted on charges of rape and sexual slavery, as well as destroying Timbuktu’s ancient Mausoleums.
In July this year, Al Hassan had already been convicted of several counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes including persecution and torture.
He has been in the ICC’s detention center since March 2018 and the more than six years he has already spent in detention will be deducted from his time. The ICC often grants release when over two-thirds of a sentence has been served so he is not expected to remain in jail much longer.
Hassan was handed over to the ICC in 2018 by the Malian authorities, five years after French troops helped liberate Timbuktu from the jihadists.
Another Islamist militant leader, Ahmed al-Faqi al-Mahdi, who destroyed ancient shrines in Timbuktu, was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2016. He even admitted doing so.
Timbuktu has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1988. It was a major centre of Islamic learning between the 13th and 17th centuries.
With Reuters inputs
