WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, or ICC, has filed an application for issuing an arrest warrant against Min Aung Hlaing, the Acting President and the Commander-in-Chief of Myanmar's armed forces, alleging his involvement in crimes against humanity targeting the Rohingya population.
The move, announced on Wednesday, follows a comprehensive investigation by the ICC into the 2016 and 2017 waves of violence in Myanmar's Rakhine province targeting the minority Muslim Rohingya community.
'My Office has concluded that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Senior General and Acting President Min Aung Hlaing bears criminal responsibility for the crimes against humanity of deportation and persecution of the Rohingya, committed in Myanmar, and in part in Bangladesh,' ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan said in a statement.
The charges stem from alleged crimes committed between 2017 August 25 and December 31 by Myanmar's armed forces, known as the Tatmadaw, in coordination with police forces, border guards and some non-Rohingya civilians.
Senior General Min Aung Hlaing has been in power since February 2021, when the military overthrew the elected government in Myanmar arresting hundreds of officials, political leaders and activists.
In addition to driving more than one million Rohingya to flee their homes and seek refuge in Bangladesh, there were countless accounts of atrocities, including systematic killings of some 10,000 Rohingya men, women, children and newborns.
There were also horrific reports of gender-based violence against women and girls, including rape and sexual violence. More than 300 villages were burnt to the ground.
The then UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, called the brutal campaign a 'textbook example of ethnic cleansing.'
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