Reaction to ICC Prosecutor’s request for arrest warrant for Min Aung Hlaing

Statement by Nicholas Koumjian, Head of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar

Geneva, 27 November 2024 – Today the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced that it had filed a request with the court for an arrest warrant for Senior General and Acting President of Myanmar Min Aung Hlaing, Commander-in-Chief of the Myanmar Defence Services, for the crimes against humanity of deportation and persecution of Rohingya. 

The Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar has closely cooperated with the ICC Prosecutor’s investigations into these crimes by providing the Office of the Prosecutor with a large volume of evidence and analysis, including witness statements. The Mechanism and the ICC also jointly interviewed several vulnerable victims of sexual violence and crimes against children.

It will now be up to a panel of judges from the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber to review the prosecutor’s request and the evidence and decide whether to issue the arrest warrant.

This application for an arrest warrant for the person who holds the highest military position in Myanmar sends a strong message to perpetrators that no one stands above the law. 

The Office of the Prosecutor also noted that this is just the first request for an arrest warrant and there will be “more to come”.  The Mechanism will continue to closely cooperate with the ICC investigation.  

The Mechanism commends the many Rohingya survivors and other witnesses that met with our investigation teams and consented to share their information with the ICC.  It is their experiences that will ultimately matter the most for eventual accountability. 

The announcement by the Office of the Prosecutor follows a five-year investigation into alleged crimes related to the waves of violence that led to the forced deportation of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya from Rakhine State in Myanmar across the border into Bangladesh in 2016 and 2017. 

The Mechanism was established to help facilitate judicial proceedings in national and international courts for serious international crimes committed in Myanmar. We are collecting evidence of these crimes committed anywhere in Myanmar since 2011, regardless of the ethnicity, religion, or politics of either the victims or perpetrators. The Mechanism’s mandate includes investigations of crimes related to armed conflicts currently ongoing in the country. 

The Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM or Mechanism) was created by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2018 to collect and analyse evidence of the most serious international crimes and other violations of international law committed in Myanmar since 2011. It aims to facilitate justice and accountability by preserving and organizing this evidence and preparing case files that can be used by authorities to prosecute individuals in national, regional and international courts.

For more information visit iimm.un.org or contact iimm@un.org