THE HAGUE: The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor asked judges on Wednesday to issue an arrest warrant for Myanmar’s head of government, Min Aung Hlaing, over alleged crimes against humanity against Rohingya Muslims.
Karim Khan’s request to the court’s Hague-based judges is the first for an arrest warrant against a high-ranking Myanmar government official in connection with abuses against the Rohingya people.
“After an extensive, independent and impartial investigation, my office has concluded that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Senior General and Acting President Min Aung Hlaing… accept criminal responsibility for crimes against humanity,” Khan said in a statement.
Khan said it included crimes of deportation and harassment, allegedly committed between August 25 and December 31, 2017.
A Junta spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In 2019, the ICC prosecutor opened an investigation into suspected crimes against the Rohingya in Myanmar’s restive Rakhine state in 2016 and 2017, which drove 750,000 of the Southeast Asian nation’s Muslim minority to neighboring Bangladesh.
About one million Rohingya currently live in sprawling camps near the Bangladeshi border town of Cox’s Bazar. Many of the defectors accuse the Myanmar military of mass killings and rapes.
Khan said the alleged crimes were committed by Myanmar’s armed forces, the Tatmadaw, backed by national and border police as well as “non-Rohingya civilians”.
“This is the first application for an arrest warrant against a high-level Myanmar government official,” Khan said.
“More will follow,” the prosecutor warned.
Since the military overthrew the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021, Myanmar has been wracked by conflict between the military and various armed groups opposed to her rule.