A Mali court sentenced a man to death in connection with a 2019 attack that killed three UN personnel, the peacekeeping force MINUSMA announced on Wednesday, without naming the defendant.
Mali, an arid West African country ruled by a military administration, has been grappling for a decade with violence perpetrated by armed non-state actors that has expanded throughout the Sahel area despite costly international efforts to quell it.
MINUSMA, or the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali, has been in operation in the country since 2013. However, the deployment of peacekeepers has not prevented armed groups affiliated with al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS) from attacking villages and towns, army facilities, and police stations.
On February 22, 2019, five peacekeepers were attacked while traveling through the rural commune of Siby in southern Mali, around 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the capital Bamako. Three people were slain, all from Guinea, which has one of the mission’s largest contingents.
Bamako’s criminal court on Tuesday convicted the man of acts of criminal association, murder, robbery and illegal possession of firearms in connection with the Siby attack, MINUSMA said.
Judges imposed the death penalty, which has not been carried out in Mali since a moratorium was placed on executions in 1980.
The MINUSMA statement did not name the convicted man and gave no details about what plea he entered. The court could not be reached for comment.
MINUSMA has deployed over 13,000 troops to contain the violence, which is concentrated in Mali’s north and centre.
The mission has recorded 281 deaths of MINUSMA personnel, many killed when convoys hit improvised explosive devices planted by the armed groups.
Aljazeera