THE HAGUE, Netherlands (CN) — Lawyers for the former head of the Islamic police force in Timbuktu told the International Criminal Court on Monday that Islamic justice saved the city from chaos, rather than oppressing its population.
Prosecutors say Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud, who is facing 13 counts of crimes against humanity at the ICC, tortured anyone who refused to comply with strict religious rules after large parts of Mali fell to Islamic separatist groups following a 2012 coup.
“He should not be convicted because he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong ethnicity,” Al Hassan’s lawyer Melinda Taylor told The Hague-based court in her opening statement. She argued that, as a member of the Tuareg minority, her client was merely fighting back against a domineering national government in Mali’s capital Bamako. Al Hassan appeared in court on Monday wearing a stark white tagelmust, the traditional head covering for Tuareg men, and a white robe with blue detailing.
Tuaregs, a Northern African ethnic group who traditionally lived a nomadic lifestyle, live across the Sahara desert from Libya to Mauratina and have been fighting for their independence since colony times when European powers divided up the continent with little regard for local concerns.
Al Hassan’s defense contends that the trial is really against Sharia, the Islamic system of Iaw. “He was obliged to respect and execute the decisions of the Islamic tribunal. This is what the police around the world do,” Taylor told the three-judge panel.
When Al Hassan first appeared before the court in 2019, he refused to enter a plea. Defense lawyers say the 44-year-old is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of torture at the hands of Malian authorities, but the court has pressed on with the proceedings, which opened in 2021. The national government turned Al Hassan over to ICC officials in 2018.
Prosecutors say the father of five served as chief of the Islamic police force in Timbuktu and was a member of the militant Islamic group Ansar Dine between April 2012 and January 2013. Cities in the western African country were overrun by separatists in 2012, who in turn succumbed to Islamist groups that enforced strict religious rules, including banning music, forcing women to wear headscarves and destroying non-Muslim religious sites.
Al Hassan is one of the first defendants before the court where gender-based violence undergirds the bulk of his charges. “The targeting and persecution of women was such that it became emblematic of the physical and moral violence inflicted on all residents of Timbuktu,” then-chief ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said when proceedings began in 2019.
One other Malian man, Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi, pleaded guilty before the ICC in 2016 for destroying cultural sites and was sentenced to nine years in prison. He is expected to testify against Al Hassan. The Hague-based court was established by the Rome Statute in 2002 to prosecute genocide and crimes against humanity that take place in a member state or are committed by a member state. It can also take up a case that is referred to it by the United Nations Security Council.
The defense is expected to present its first witness on Tuesday and its presentation is scheduled through August.
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