Mali war crimes suspect arrested, handed over to ICC

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A Malian war crimes suspect accused of torture, sex slavery and destroying cultural sites in Timbuktu in 2012-2013, was arrested on Saturday and handed over to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the court said.

Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud was detained by Malian authorities days after the ICC issued a warrant for his arrest.

He faces charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for the destruction of the holy shrines of Timbuktu – a UNESCO world heritage site – as well as accusations of rape and forced marriage.

The 40-year-old is alleged to have been a member of the Al-Qaeda linked Ansar Dine and the de facto chief of the Islamic police in the Malian city from April 2012 to January 2013.

The entrance of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is seen in The Hague, Netherlands March 3, 2011. /VCG Photo

His detention "sends a strong message to all those, wherever they are, who commit crimes which shock the conscience of humanity that my office remains steadfast in the pursuit of its mandate," ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said.

Judges said prosecutors had presented enough evidence to issue an arrest warrant against Al Hassan for crimes against humanity including "torture, rape and sexual slavery; persecution of the inhabitants of Timbuktu on religious and gender grounds; and other inhumane acts."

Al Hassan allegedly "participated in the policy of forced marriages which victimized the female inhabitants of Timbuktu and led to repeated rapes and the sexual enslavement of women and girls," the court said in a statement.

"The charges against him are representative of the criminality and resulting victimization of the population during this period," Bensouda added.

Al Hassan will have an initial court appearance next week at which he will be informed of the allegations outlined in his arrest warrant.

His detention is in any case a boost for ICC prosecutors.

This file photo taken on September 30, 2015 shows alleged Al-Qaeda-linked Islamist leader Ahmad Faqi Al Mahdi sitting in the courtroom of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. /VCG Photo

He will be only the second Islamic extremist to face trial at the ICC after Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi, another Malian who was jailed in 2016 for nine years after pleading guilty to demolishing Timbuktu's fabled shrines.

This was widely viewed as a landmark case because it was the first time a person was convicted of a war crime solely for destruction of cultural artifacts.

Dubbed "the city of 333 saints" for the number of Muslim sages buried there, Timbuktu was revered as a center of Islamic learning during its golden age in the 15th and 16th centuries. Extremist jihadists who swept across Mali's remote north in early 2012 however considered it idolatrous and took pickaxes and bulldozers to the centuries-old shrines.

(Top picture: French and Malian soldiers patrol next to the Djingareyber Mosque on June 6, 2015 in Timbuktu, Mali. /VCG Photo)

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Source(s): AFP ,Reuters