Rohingya crisis: Myanmar will ‘not be a hindrance to ICC in anyway’

Myanmar will not be a hindrance to the International Criminal Court (ICC) “in anyway” for investigation into the Rohingya atrocities and prosecution of individuals responsible, if the legal criteria are met, the delegation from The Hague-based court’s prosecutor said.

Senior Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 11 March 2019, 03:29 PM
Updated : 11 March 2019, 03:29 PM

This is despite the fact the Myanmar is not a party to the Rome Statute and is not cooperating with the ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s office.

Phakiso Mochochoko, Director of Jurisdiction, Complementarity and Cooperation Division of the Office of the Prosecutor of ICC, at a briefing in Dhaka on Monday said if the legal criteria are met, the prosecutor has no alternative to carrying out investigation.

Prosecutor Bensouda opened the case at The Hague-based court in September last year to probe the Myanmar’s alleged crimes against the ethnic minority, including killings, sexual violence, and forced deportations.

Bangladesh has given shelter to over 700,000 Rohingyas since Aug 2017 when they fled “ethnic cleansing” in the Rakhine State.

The delegation arrived in Dhaka last Tuesday on behalf of the prosecutor to what he said engage with relevant stakeholders, explain the “preliminary examination” process, and travel to the refugee camps to inform the office’s ongoing assessment.

“A preliminary examination is not an investigation, but an assessment of the Rome Statute criteria to decide whether an investigation into the situation at hand is warranted,” he said.

“Therefore, during this mission, as is standard practice of the office, the delegation did not collect evidence or perform any other investigative activities.

“The field visit enabled them to hold productive meetings in Bangladesh and to fully appreciate the sheer magnitude and severity of this human tragedy."

But Mochochoko said this preliminary examination can lead to a formal investigation by the ICC and then possible indictments.

“If legal criteria are met, the prosecutor is under an obligation to request authorisation from the chamber to proceed to an investigation. So that is the process and analysis that are ongoing at the moment to determine the legal criteria are met,” he said.

“And then Myanmar will not be in any way a hindrance to us in proceeding once the criteria are met.”

The legal criteria include question of jurisdiction, complementarities, the gravity of the situation, and interests of justice.

There is a growing international call for holding Myanmar authorities accountable for what have been done to Muslim-minority Rohingyas.