PARIS — The International Criminal Court ruled on Thursday that an Islamist extremist who pleaded guilty last year to destroying shrines and damaging a mosque in the ancient city of Timbuktu, Mali, was liable for damages of $3.2 million.

The man, Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi, a member of a jihadist group linked to Al Qaeda, took part in the smashing of a number of centuries-old mud and stone buildings holding the tombs of holy men and scholars in 2012, when members of his group seized Timbuktu and other parts of northern Mali.

A French-led military force recaptured Timbuktu the next year, and Mr. Mahdi was later arrested in Niger and, at Mali’s request, sent to the International Criminal Court, which is based in The Hague.

He pleaded guilty, and in 2016 was sentenced to nine years in prison for the destruction of cultural property, a war crime. It is the first case in which this international court prosecuted a jihadist for cultural destruction and ordered reparations since extremists began attacking sites that they deemed to violate their interpretation of Islam.