The trial of a Malian jihadist, prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against humanity, rape and sexual slavery committed in the context of forced marriages and destruction of mausoleums in Timbuktu, opens Tuesday July 14 before the International Criminal Court ( ICC).  

Aged 42, Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud, his full name, is accused of having contributed in 2012 and 2013 to the demolition of heritage in this city in north-west Mali, but also of torture. It was handed over in April 2018 by the Malian authorities to the ICC, based in The Hague, the Netherlands. 

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The accusations 

His trial begins Tuesday with opening statements from the prosecution, which had claimed in previous hearings that Al Hassan had played a decisive role in the "ordeal" suffered by the residents of Timbuktu under the jihadist stranglehold. 

The defense and legal representatives of the victims will deliver their statements at a later date, once the evidence has been presented to the judges, the ICC said. 

In a historic verdict, the Court had condemned in 2016 a first Malian jihadist, Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi, to nine years in prison for having taken part in 2012 in the demolition of protected mausoleums in Timbuktu, a site inscribed by the Unesco World Heritage of Humanity. 

This time, due to the new coronavirus pandemic, some participants will take part in the remote trial. The Court was unable to indicate whether the accused will be present in the courtroom. 

The accused was allegedly a member of Ansar Dine, one of the jihadist armed groups which in March-April 2012 took control of the remote region of northern Mali in 2012, and the Islamic police commissioner in Timbuktu. 

"A calvary imposed by a tyrannical regime"

These groups "imposed their vision of religion, by terror, on a local population which did not adhere to it", according to the arrest warrant. 

A wave of destruction had swept through Timbuktu, founded between the 5th and 12th centuries by the Tuareg tribes and nicknamed "the city of 333 saints" for the number of Muslim sages buried there. 

According to the ICC, Al Hassan had approximately 40 Islamic police under his control. All breaches of their strict reading of Islamic laws were punished with flogging and torture, the court said. 

Residents have experienced a "ordeal imposed by a tyrannical regime," said court attorney Fatou Bensouda last year, noting that the accused had participated in some of the punishments himself. 

With AFP

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