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Jihadists behind 2015 Mali terror attacks sentenced to death

October 28, 2020

The men proudly admitted they killed scores of Westerners, claiming it was "revenge" for the Charlie Hebdo caricatures of Prophet Muhammad. They were immediately sentenced to death after the verdict was announced.

https://p.dw.com/p/3kZ93
A soldier stands near La Terasse restaurant in Bamako, Mali, after a terrorist attack
Image: AFP/Getty Images/H. Kouyate

Mali's Bamako Criminal Court on Wednesday sentenced two Islamists to death after they were found guilty of having killed more than two dozen people in terror attacks in the country throughout 2015.

In announcing a verdict after the two-day hearing, the court's president, Souley Maiga, said, "The court finds you guilty of the facts you are accused of and does not grant you any mitigating circumstances."

The two men freely admitted to having planned and carried out a grisly series of attacks on foreigners and Malians at establishments catering to Western guests. In all, the men were involved in three attacks: One at the La Terrasse restaurant in the capital Bamako in March that killed five, one on the Hotel Byblos in Sevare in August that killed 17, and another hostage rampage at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Bamako in November that killed 20.

Read more: Opinion: Time to match deeds to words in Mali

Ex-jihadi speaks about terror

'Revenge for the prophet'

The men described the killings and their motivation during the two-day hearing, saying they were "not ashamed," but "proud," noting that they targeted "white people," calling them "non-believers." 

One of the men, a Mauritanian, said: "It was revenge for the prophet after what they did at Charlie Hebdo — it's the photos, the caricatures. And sadly it's not over. It's still continuing." 

The comment seemed to reference the storm of anger caused by French President Emmanuel Macron's defense of free speech in the wake of the beheading of French school teacher Samuel Paty, who used the cartoon as one of a number of teaching examples on free speech in his high school history class.

Read more: France Muhammad cartoon row: What you need to know

Links to al-Qaida and others

The Mauritanian and two Malian accomplices are said to have worked closely with the terror groups al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and Al-Mourabitoun, which have claimed responsibility for a number of attacks in Mali as well as neighboring Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast.

Read more: France kills al-Qaida head of North Africa

Mali and other Sahel countries have faced difficulty combating Islamists for almost a decade. As a result, thousands in the region have died at the hands of insurgents and hundreds of thousands have been forced to flee their homes.

js/sri (AFP, Reuters)