THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS ¨C War crimes judges on Tuesday sentenced a former Islamist rebel who admitted wrecking holy shrines during Mali¡¯s 2012 conflict to nine years in prison, in the first such case to focus on destruction of cultural heritage.
Human rights groups and international legal experts hope Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi¡¯s case in the International Criminal Court may serve as a deterrent to a kind of devastation that continues to be a feature of global conflicts yet has gone largely unpunished.
Al-Mahdi expressed remorse for his involvement in the destruction of 10 mausoleums and religious sites in Timbuktu dating from Mali¡¯s 14th-century golden age as a trading hub and center of Sufi Islam, a branch of the religion seen as idolatrous by some hard-line Muslim groups.
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