THE HAGUE: The International Criminal Court on Wednesday said it would sentence in November a Malian militant police chief convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Timbuktu.
Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud, 46, was found guilty in June of crimes including torture and outrages upon personal dignity during a reign of terror in the fabled Malian city.
Al Hassan played a “key role” overseeing amputations and floggings as police chief when militants from the Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Ansar Dine groups seized control of Timbuktu for almost a year from early 2012, a judge previously said.
“The judges may impose a prison sentence of maximum 30 years or, when justified by the extreme gravity of the crime and the individual circumstances of the convicted person, life imprisonment,” the ICC said in a statement.
“They may also add a fine or forfeiture of the proceeds, property and assets derived directly or indirectly from the crime committed.”
The Hague-based court will sentence Al Hassan on November 20 from 2 p.m. local time (1300 GMT), according to the statement.
Notices of appeal against verdict were filed in September by both the defendant’s legal team and the prosecutor.
Al Hassan was also convicted of “contributing to the crimes perpetrated by other members” of the militant groups including mutilation and persecution.
He told investigators that the people of Timbuktu were “scared out of their minds,” according to the prosecutor.
The militant was however acquitted of the war crimes of rape and sexual slavery, as well as the crime against humanity of forced marriage.
Founded between the fifth and 12th centuries by Tuareg tribes, Timbuktu is known as the “Pearl of the Desert” and “The City of 333 Saints” for the number of Muslim sages buried there during a golden age of Islam.
But militants who swept into the city considered the shrines idolatrous and destroyed them with pickaxes and bulldozers.
The militants from Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Ansar Dine exploited an ethnic Tuareg uprising in 2012 to take over cities in Mali’s volatile north.
The ICC in June made public an arrest warrant for one of the Sahel’s top militant leaders over alleged atrocities in Timbuktu from 2012 to 2013.
Iyad Ag Ghaly, is considered to be the leader of the Al-Qaeda-linked Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), which operates in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.
ICC to sentence Mali militant in November over war crimes
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ICC to sentence Mali militant in November over war crimes
- “The judges may impose a prison sentence of maximum 30 years or, when justified by the extreme gravity of the crime,” the ICC said
- The Hague-based court will sentence Al Hassan on November 20 from 2 p.m. local time
Trump invites Colombia’s Petro to White House after earlier threat of military action
- Relations between Trump and Petro have been frosty since the Republican returned to the White House in January 2025
WASHINGTON/BOGOTA: Days after threatening Colombia with military action, US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said arrangements were being made for the country’s President Gustavo Petro to visit the White House, following a call between the two leaders. Trump and Petro said they discussed relations between the two countries in their first call since the US president on Sunday said that a US military operation focused on Colombia’s government “sounds good” to him. That threat followed Trump ordering the US capture of the president of neighboring Venezuela, who was flown to the US to face drug and weapons charges.
“It was a great honor to speak with the President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, who called to explain the situation of drugs and other disagreements that we have had. I appreciated his call and tone, and look forward to meeting him in the near future,” Trump wrote on social media.
Trump added “arrangements are being made” for a meeting in Washington between himself and Petro, Colombia’s first leftist president, but gave no specific date for a meeting.
“We have spoken by phone for the first time since he became president,” Petro told supporters gathered at a rally in Bogota meant to celebrate Colombia’s sovereignty, adding he had requested a restart of dialogue between the two countries.
A source in Petro’s office told Reuters the call was “cordial” and “respectful.”
Relations between Trump and Petro have been frosty since the Republican returned to the White House in January 2025.
Trump has repeatedly accused the administration of Petro, without evidence, of enabling a steady flow of cocaine into the US, imposing sanctions on the Colombian leader in October.
On Sunday Trump referred to Petro as “a sick man, who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States.”
The US in September had revoked Petro’s visa after he joined a pro-Palestinian demonstration in New York following a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly and called on US soldiers to “disobey the orders of Trump.”
Petro, who has been a vocal opponent of Israel’s war in Gaza, had accused Trump of being “complicit in genocide” in Gaza and called for “criminal proceedings” over US missile attacks on suspected drug-running boats in Caribbean waters.
The Trump administration has carried out more than 30 strikes against suspected drug boats since September, in a campaign that has killed at least 110 people.
