By RFIPalled on 11-07-2019Modified on 11-07-2019 at 01:19

In The Hague, a confirmation of charges hearing was held on Wednesday (July 10th) for former Ansar Dine official, Malian Mohamed al-Hassan, prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Timbuktu in 2012- 2013. He appears as a former Commissioner of the Islamic Police during the jihadist occupation of Timbuktu. A hearing during which the prosecutor's team continued to substantiate his charges - arbitrary arrests, detentions and judgments, acts of torture, sexual violence, etc. - before the first representative of the victims speaks.

A new day of hearing, and many more elements presented by the prosecution to prove that it is appropriate to prosecute Mohamed al-Hassan . Maps, videos, written testimonies, an audio recording elsewhere broadcast by RFI at the time of the facts ... So many pieces that demonstrate, according to the prosecutor's office, that Mohamed al-Hassan has made an essential contribution in a common plane. A plan to impose Sharia when the city of Timbuktu was fully under jihadist control.

In the afternoon, it is with solemnity that the Malian lawyer Seydou Doumbia speaks. In front of an impassive Mohamed al-Hassan, his first words are to thank the Court on behalf of the victims. Because the latter, he says, have long waited to be heard.

In the wake, Seydou Doumbia pays tribute to the work of the prosecutor's office. " We are now certain that the prosecution has seen, heard, felt the long-suffering sentences of these victims, those pains that resonate in every being in Timbuktu. "

Break the social fabric

And Master Doumbia keeps the accounts: 882 victims allowed to participate in the proceedings at this stage, of whom more than two thirds are women. The lawyer says it: they have paid the highest price. " At the same time that the jihadists uprooted and buried everything that Timbuktu had specific, was added this extreme violence vis-à-vis the woman, because precisely for the man of Timbuktu, the woman represents a symbol very strong. "

In doing so, for Master Doumbia, the jihadists have attacked the traditional cement of society. Because the public sanction like the sexual violence, he explains, is an intergenerational shame. Seydou Doumbia sees here a clear way to traumatize the population and break the social fabric. The depopulation of Timbuktu that followed shows in his view that the goal has been achieved.

This Thursday, it is Master Mayombo Kassongo, another representative of the victims who will speak first. The hearings are held until Tuesday, July 16th. The Pre-Trial Chamber will then decide by 30 September 2019 whether or not to hold a trial.

    On the same subject

    Malian Mohamed al-Hassan at the ICC: an "indispensable commissioner"

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