Mali jihadi Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi to plead guilty

Destruction of heritage in Mali
was not the work of ONE man

A Malian jihadi Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi will plead guilty to being among those attacking the world heritage site of Timbuktu before the international criminal court (ICC) based in The Hague at a joint hearing and sentencing due to be held in the coming months.

He stands accused of jointly ordering or carrying out the destruction of nine mausoleums and a section of Timbuktu’s famous Sidi Yahia mosque, a Unesco world heritage site dating back to the 15th and 16th centuries. [...] Mahdi will admit a single charge of “the war crime of attacking buildings dedicated to religion and historic monuments” in 2012, when many of the ancient shrines were destroyed. [...] ICC prosecutors say Mahdi was a leader of Ansar Dine, a mainly Tuareg group that controlled areas of Mali’s northern desert together with al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (Aqim) and a third local group in early 2012.

Reports make no mention of anybody else being charged for similar deeds in the same conflict. Will al-Faqi al-Mahdia be left to carry the can for all the others still in hiding?

Update 27th September 2016
he got nine years in jail.