Mali: the ICC prosecutor's indictment of the former head of the Islamist police of Timbuktu

The alleged jihadist Al-Hassan is being prosecuted at the ICC for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during the occupation of Timbuktu. EVA PLEVIER / ANP / AFP

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The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has delivered his closing arguments in the Al Hassan case. The former Ansar Dine jihadist, former commissioner of the Islamic police, is being prosecuted for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Timbuktu during the occupation in 2012. The prosecutor asks the judges to convict him. He faces life imprisonment.

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With our correspondent in The Hague, Stéphanie Maupas

According to the prosecutor, it is the accused himself who will, quite unwittingly, have provided evidence of his own crimes.

Occupied Timbuktu was a city where everything was haram, said one of the witnesses who came to the court's stand. Dance, music, tobacco, football are banned under the jihadist occupation. Abdulaziz Al Hassan is a zealous commissioner, according to the prosecution.

In his closing argument, the prosecutor, Gilles Dutertre went into the details of a very extensive file, evoking abundant evidence and according to him sufficient to convict the accused.

Among its evidence, there are the testimonies of horror. There are also the 39 police reports written and signed by the accused himself. Al Hassan evokes the use of torture.

In the prosecutor's case, there are still videos in which the jihadist clearly appears inflicting lashes on a young man, or refusing the leniency that a woman on the ground implores for. The prosecutor did not show the images of a killing, which he nevertheless told the three judges.

Gilles Dutertre also dwelt at length on the crimes targeting girls and women during the 10 months of occupation, hunted down the street and even in their homes, raped, sometimes subjected to slavery.

Wearing a white turban, sitting behind his team of lawyers, Al Hassan did not comment. But tomorrow the floor will be for the defence.

" READ ALSO – Mali: last stage of the trial at the ICC of the former chief of the Islamist police of Timbuktu

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• International justice
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