Jihadist pleads guilty to destroying ancient Timbuktu artifacts

The ICC documents say Mahdi directed Islamist fighters to destroy religious sites in Timbuktu with pickaxes and chisels between June and July 2012.

“I am really sorry, I am really remorseful, and I regret all the damage that my actions have caused”, Mahdi said after he pleaded guilty.

Ansar Dine, an extremist militia with roots in the nomadic Tuareg people, has ties to al-Qaeda and destroyed the shrines believing them to be idolatrous.

Prosecutors say he was a member of Ansar Dine, an Islamist group that occupied the city’s world heritage site for months.

History is set to be made on Monday at the world’s only permanent war crimes court when an alleged Malian jihadist is due to plead guilty to attacking the fabled city of Timbuktu. It is expected that al-Mahd will plead guilty to the charges.

The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, said that Mr Mahdi was “who identified the sites to be destroyed and who provided the means”.

Mahdi, who is from a village 62 miles (100km) from Timbuktu, was accused of having joined the jihadis, who were trying to hire local people to build their credibility, and leading the vice squad. Al-Mahdi described himself at a court hearing last September as a graduate of the teachers’ institute in Timbuktu and a civil servant in Mali’s education department. The court’s recent enforcement of the statute could set a precedent for similar cases like ISIL’s destruction of the ancient city of Palmyra previous year.

Aged about 40, Mahdi is the first person ever to confess his crimes at the ICC, is also the first Islamic extremist to appear before the tribunal, and the first charged with crimes arising out of the conflict in Mali.

Al-Mahdi faces a maximum sentence of 30 years but is likely to receive a lesser term given his co-operation, which means the case is likely to be over this week.

In 2013, after occupying Timbuktu for nearly a year, the Islamist rebels were finally driven out by French forces, who arrested Mahdi in neighbouring Niger in 2014.

Worldwide rights group FIDH says its member organizations have documented a litany of crimes and filed a criminal complaint on behalf of 33 victims in Malian courts naming Al Mahdi and 14 others as alleged perpetrators of crimes including rape and sexual slavery. “So this is the first case we’ve brought and we will see with respect to other crimes that have been committed within the context in Mali”.