A lawyer for an alleged extremist accused of involvement in crimes including rape and torture in the northern Malian city of Timbuktu a decade ago rejected the allegations and said Monday that he was just a police officer carrying out court orders who could have been killed for disobeying.
Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court had argued that the defendant, Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud, was a “key figure” in a reign of terror after al-Qaida-linked rebels overran the Malian desert city in 2012.
