The International Criminal Court (ICC) has sentenced the former head of the Islamic police in Mali’s historic city of Timbuktu to 10 years in prison for war crimes.

Prosecutors said al-Hassan ag Abdoul Aziz ag Mohamed ag Mahmoud led a “reign of terror” in the city after it was overrun in 2012 by the al-Qaeda-linked Ansar Dine group.

He was found guilty in June of this year of torture, overseeing public machete amputations and brutal flogging of residents, including children.

He was acquitted on charges of rape and sexual slavery, as well as the destruction of ancient mausoleums in Timbuktu.

Hassan was handed over to the ICC in 2018 by Malian authorities – five years after French troops helped liberate Timbuktu from jihadists.

Ansar Dine was one of several Islamist militant groups that exploited an ethnic Tuareg uprising to take over towns in northern Mali.

Another Islamist militant leader who destroyed ancient shrines in Timbuktu was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2016.

Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi admitted that the leading fighters who destroyed historic mausoleums at the world heritage site in Mali in 2012.

Timbuktu was a major center of Islamic learning between the 13th and 17th centuries and was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1988.