Mali militant pleads guilty to ordering 2012 Timbuktu attacks, asks for forgiveness in court

Mahdi, aged about 40, is also the first Islamic extremist charged by the ICC and the first person to face a solo allegation of cultural destruction.

The attacks on the ancient shrines by jihadists in 2012 triggered global outcry, and archaeologists hope the trial will send a stern warning that such plundering of our common heritage will not go unpunished.

Plucked from the edges of the Sahara to a courtroom in The Hague, the bespectacled Mahdi is accused of "intentionally directing attacks" against nine of Timbuktu's famous mausoleums as well as the Sidi Yahia mosque between June 30 and July 11, 2012.

Founded between the fifth and the 12th centuries by Tuareg tribes, Timbuktu's very name evokes centuries of history and has been dubbed "the city of 333 saints" for the number of Muslim sages buried there.

Revered as a centre of Islamic learning during its golden age in the 15th and 16th centuries and a designated Unesco world heritage site, Timbuktu was however condemned as idolatrous by the jihadists.

ICC prosecutors allege that Mahdi was a member of Ansar Dine, a mainly Tuareg movement that in 2012 took control of Timbuktu some 1,000km north-east of Bamako, along with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

As the head of the "Hisbah" or the "Manners Brigade" he ordered the attacks on the shrines, ICC prosecutors say.

Such cultural destruction "is tantamount to an assault on people's history. It robs future generations of their landmarks and their heritage", ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda told AFP before the trial.

"No one who destroys that which embodies the very soul and the roots of a people through such crimes should be allowed to escape justice."