ICC's first cultural destruction trial to send "clear message", U.N. says

Record ID: 112306

  • Title: ICC's first cultural destruction trial to send "clear message", U.N. says
  • Date: 29th February 2016
  • Summary: TIMBUKTU, MALI (FILE - JULY 1, 2012) (REUTERS) GROUP OF ISLAMIST REBELS DESTROYING CHEICK ALFA MOYA MAUSOLEUM WITH A HAMMER MAN STANDING ON TOP OF RUINS OF MAUSOLEUM, WHILE ANOTHER MAN DESTROYS MAUSOLEUM WITH AN AXE BEHIND HIM SIGN READING (French): "Cemetery of the Three Saints" BED, SHROUD AND PART OF A MAUSOLEUM DOOR, WHICH BELONG TO THE SUFI SAINT CHEICK ALFA MOYA, ABA
  • Embargoed: 15th March 2016 10:25
  • Keywords: Mali Timbuktu mausoleums destruction Islamists UNESCO International Criminal Court Ahmad al-Faqi al-MahdiI
  • Location: TIMBUKTU, MALI, PARIS, FRANCE & THE HAGUE, THE NETHERLANDS
  • City: TIMBUKTU, MALI, PARIS, FRANCE & THE HAGUE, THE NETHERLANDS
  • Country: Mali
  • Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace
  • Reuters ID: LVA00146JLR9J
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS MATERIAL THAT WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
    The International Criminal Court's (ICC) first cultural destruction trial sends a "clear message" that crimes against world heritage will not go unpunished, UNESCO said ahead of a confirmation of charges hearing for a suspected Islamist rebel accused of destroying ancient monuments in Mali's Timbuktu.
    The earthen tombs of Sufi saints, located in the UNESCO listed desert city, were destroyed in July 2012 by militants from the al Qaeda-linked Ansar Dine group with guns and pick-axes.
    Video footage from the period shows armed militants hacking at the sites. Thousands of ancient manuscripts were also burned in a suicide bombing.
    The salafist group Ansar Dine backs strict sharia, Islamic law, and considers the centuries-old shrines of the local Sufi version of Islam in Timbuktu to be idolatrous. Ansar Dine is made up of Islamist fighters of various nationalities including Malians, Algerians and Nigerians.
    Malian citizen Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi is the first person to face charges for damaging mankind's cultural heritage at the court.
    ICC prosecutors say that Mahdi led an Islamist morality squad called al-Hesbah, which helped execute the decisions of the Islamic court of Timbuktu. They accuse him also of belonging to Ansar Dine.
    As Hesbah leader, Mahdi is accused of directing attacks against nine mausoleums and the Sidi Yahia mosque in Timbuktu, a city which by the 14th century had become a major trading hub and centre of learning.
    Mahdi confirmed he was able to follow the proceedings via Arabic interpretation.
    UNESCO's Assistant Director General for Culture Francesco Bandarin said even though the reach of the ICC is limited, the case is important symbolically and would hopefully help the court be more effective in the future.
    "It's a clear message that crimes like this don't go unpunished. That's the thing. Of course we understand that this is one case, one person and what we see today on many fronts, too many fronts, from Mali to Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, et cetera, too many fronts, is massive destruction," he said.
    The ICC has been examining events in Mali since 2012, when Islamist Tuareg rebels seized large parts of the country's north and imposed strict Muslim religious law. They began desecrating ancient shrines, mosques and monuments in Timbuktu, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
    French and Malian troops pushed them back the following year.
    Many observers have suggested the court look at the Islamic State's destruction of ancient archaeological sites in Palmyra, but Syria is not part of its jurisdiction, leaving the court powerless to intervene without a mandate from the U.N. Security Council.
    Set up in 2002, the court is powerless to involve itself even in some of the world's bloodiest conflicts if the countries at war are not members.
    The Timbuktu attack came days after UNESCO placed the city on its list of heritage sites in danger and recalls the 2001 dynamiting by the Taliban of two 6th-century statues of Buddha carved into a cliff in Bamiyan in central Afghanistan.
    In March 2014, Malian masons began rebuilding mausoleums in Timbuktu after being hired by UNESCO representatives who came to assess the damages a year earlier.
    Bandarin said fourteen of the sixteen mausoleums were destroyed by Islamist rebels.
    "Of course this was a very traumatic event and something that remains in the memory of the local people and also internationally, you know. It is something that really started or was part of a season where we see a lot of destruction of cultural heritage for political, religious reasons, sometimes just for the sake of extracting materials and objects of art that are therefore subsequently sold in the market as we see in Syria, Iraq and other parts of the world," he said.
    Reconstruction finished in July 2015 and the rebuilt sites were inaugurated by UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova alongside the Malian government and local leaders.
    Much of Timbuktu's rich cultural heritage dates back to the 13th-17th centuries when the city, a key transit point for caravans crossing the Sahara, blossomed and became a global centre of Islamic learning. Some locals ascribe special protective powers to the tombs housing Sufi saints.
    The city remains an important pilgrimage site for Muslims in West Africa.
    Islamist militants were scattered by a French military intervention in 2013 but they continue to attack Western and Malian targets in the area, preventing most tourists from returning.
    The Al Qaeda offshoot Islamic State also opposes the mystical school of Islam known as Sufism and has destroyed its shrines and tombs in eastern Syria.
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