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The prosecutor of the international criminal court (ICC) said he would seek an arrest warrant for Myanmar’s military leader, Min Aung Hlaing, for crimes against humanity over the alleged persecution of the Rohingya, a mainly Muslim minority.
A panel of three judges will decide if there are “reasonable grounds” to believe Gen Min Aung Hlaing bears criminal responsibility for the deportation and persecution of Rohingya in Myanmar and Bangladesh.
There is no set timeframe for their decision but it generally takes about three months to rule on issuing an arrest warrant.
A spokesperson for Myanmar’s ruling junta did not answer calls seeking comment from the military government immediately after the announcement.
The prosecutor’s office said in a statement that it was seeking the warrant after extensive, independent and impartial investigations. More applications for arrest warrants will follow, it said.
More than 730,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh during the campaign which UN investigators said was carried out with “genocidal intent”.
Myanmar denies accusations of genocide and has always maintained it does not target civilians, saying it carried out military operations against terrorists.
Myanmar is not a member of the treaty-based ICC, but in 2018 and 2019 rulings judges said the court had jurisdiction over alleged cross-border crimes that partially took place in neighbouring ICC member Bangladesh, and said prosecutors could open a formal investigation.
“This is the first application for an arrest warrant against a high-level Myanmar government official that my office is filing. More will follow,” the ICC prosecutor’s statement said.