Extremist Timbuktu Islamic police chief sentenced to 10 years in jail by ICC

The worldwide legal courtroom has sentenced an al-Qaida-linked extremist chief to 10 years in jail for warfare crimes and crimes towards humanity carried out when he headed the Islamic police in Timbuktu in Mali, west Africa.

Al-Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud was convicted in June of torture, spiritual persecution and different inhumane acts. Judges discovered he was a “key determine” in a reign of terror after Islamic extremist rebels overran the traditional desert metropolis in 2012.

“This regime and these acts had a traumatic affect on the inhabitants of Timbuktu,” the presiding decide, Kimberly Prost, instructed the courtroom in The Hague.

Dressed head to toe in white conventional robes, al-Hassan was expressionless as he listened to the sentence being learn out.

The 48-year-old was a member of Ansar Dine, an Islamic extremist group linked to al-Qaida that held energy in northern Mali on the time, and served as Timbuktu’s head of police. A French-led navy operation in 2013 compelled the group from energy, however insurgent components have continued to stage assaults on Malian and worldwide forces.

To the frustration of many human rights teams, al-Hassan was acquitted of a number of prices specializing in the abuse of ladies. The three-judge panel discovered that rape and sexual slavery did happen whereas his group managed Timbuktu, however al-Hassan couldn’t be linked to these crimes.

The courtroom did discover there was adequate proof to convict al-Hassan of prices together with torture, outrages upon private dignity, and merciless remedy. It discovered prisoners had been abused by being saved in tiny, filthy cells and repeatedly flogged.

Each side have appealed.

Al-Hassan denied he was responsible. His defence lawyer, Melinda Taylor, instructed judges in the course of the trial that his place within the Islamic police power obliged him to respect and perform choices made by an Islamic tribunal. “That is what the police around the globe do,” Taylor stated.

The ten-year sentence will probably be decreased by time served. Al-Hassan has been in ICC custody since March 2018, leaving about three and a half years remaining.

The trial is the second case on the ICC linked to Ansar Dine’s brutal occupation of Timbuktu. One other member of the group, Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi, was convicted in 2016 and sentenced to 9 years’ imprisonment for attacking 9 mausoleums and a mosque door within the metropolis in 2012.

Mali, together with its neighbours Burkina Faso and Niger, has for greater than a decade battled an insurgency fought by armed teams, together with some allied with al-Qaida or Islamic State. After navy coups in all three nations in recent times, the ruling juntas have expelled French forces and turned to Russia’s mercenary items for safety help as a substitute.