Islamist rebel Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi looks on during an appearance at the International Criminal Court in The Hague on August 22, 2016, at the start of his trial on charges of involvement in the destruction of historic mausoleums in the Malian desert city of Timbuktu. In an unprecedented move, Mahdi, aged between 30 and 40, last month pleaded guilty to the single war crimes charge of "intentionally directing" attacks in 2012 on nine of Timbuktu's mausoleums and the centuries-old door of the city's Sidi Yahia mosque. The court found that Mahdi, was a member of the Ansar Drine, one of the jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb which seized the northern territory before being mostly chased out by a French-led military intervention in January 2013.
The International Criminal Court sentences Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi to nine years in jail for leading the destruction of nine of Timbuktu's mausoleums and the centuries-old door of the Malian city's Sidi Yahya Mosque.