The International Criminal Court published an arrest warrant for one of the Sahel’s top Islamist militant leaders Friday.
While the warrant for Iyad Ag Ghaly, the alleged leader of the extremist Ansar Dine Islamist group, was issued in 2017, it was not made public until now.
The charges against Ghaly, also known as Abou Fadl, stem from Ansar Dine’s takeover of the storied city of Timbuktu, Mali, in 2012. Ghaly is a Malian national of Tuareg ethnicity.
He is accused of an array of war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in 2012 and 2013. They include rape, murder, sexual slavery, torture and attacks on buildings of religious or historic significance.
The militants used pickaxes, shovels, hammers and other items to destroy hundreds of centuries-old earthen Sufi Muslim shrines and tombs in the desert city.
Ghaly “is suspected of having committed these crimes jointly with others and/or through others,” the ICC said in a statement.
The ICC also said that there were "reasonable grounds" to believe Ghaly was the "undisputed leader” of Ansar Dine at the time of the takeover, and that Ansar Dine and al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb held joint control of Timbuktu after its takeover.
The warrant was not made public when it was issued in 2017, according to an Agence France-Presse report, because of the “potential risks to witnesses and victims.”
Ghaly has not been apprehended.
The ICC is not able to detain suspects and instead relies on its member states to arrest suspects. Located in The Hague, the court is the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal.
Some information for this report came from Reuters and Agence France-Presse.