Mali rebel destroyed Timbuktu shrines

AMSTERDAM: An Islamist fighter caused irreparable damage to Africa’s cultural heritage by destroying religious sites in the ancient city of Timbuktu during the 2012 conflict in Mali, international prosecutors said on Tuesday.

Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi, a former trainee teacher, had led and personally taken part in the attacks on nine mausoleums and mosques in the city with pick-axes and crowbars, prosecutors at the International Criminal Court (ICC) said.

Al-Mahdi -- an ethnic Tuareg who prosecutors say belonged to the Ansar Dine militant group, an ally of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb -- is the first person to be charged with destroying cultural artefacts by the court.

"This crime affects the soul and spirit of the people," said prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, comparing the attacks on the ancient seat of learning to the destruction wrought by Islamic State militants on Palmyra in Syria and the Taliban’s 2001 defacement of the Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan.