Judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) yesterday ruled that a former Muslim rebel who was jailed for wrecking holy sites in Timbuktu, Mali, was liable for damages of 2.7 million euros (US$3.2 million).
Amad al-Faqi al-Mahdi was last year jailed for nine years after pleading guilty to war crimes for his involvement in the destruction of 10 mausoleums and religious sites in Timbuktu.
Extremists used pickaxes and bulldozers against nine mausoleums and the centuries-old door of the Sidi Yahya mosque, part of a golden age of Islam.
Judge Raul Pangalangan said action such as the attacks on the shrines “destroys part of humanity’s shared memory and collective consciousness, and renders humanity unable to transmit its values and knowledge to future generations.”
Timbuktu, founded by Tuareg tribes between the fifth and 12th centuries, has been nicknamed “the city of 333 saints,” referring to the number of Muslim sages buried there.
During a halcyon period in the 15th and 16th century, the city was revered as a center of Islamic learning, but for 21st century fanatics, its moderate form of Islam was idolatrous.
The assault on a world heritage site triggered global opprobrium, but also led to legal precedent.
Mahdi’s case was the first to come before the Hague-based ICC as a crime of cultural destruction.
Jailing him sent a strong warning that destroying cultural heritage would not go unpunished, and reparations will aim to “alleviate the lasting imprints” of the crime, said Alina Balta at Tilburg University’s International Victimology Institute.
According to the court’s 1998 founding accord, the Rome Statute, judges can determine that victims are entitled to reparations including “restitution, compensation and rehabilitation.”
The security situation in northern Mali “poses serious challenges,” the Trust Fund for Victims, an agency that will implement the judges’ order, has said.
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