Sources in The Hague say Gambia’s attorney general has clarified that Aung San Suu Kyi has been removed from the legal team defending Burma in the Rohingya genocide case brought at the UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Suu Kyi had famously referred to the 2017 events in Rakhine State as “intercommunal violence” against “insurgents or terrorists” whilst defending Burma in the Hague in Dec. 2019.
In June of last year, Min Aung Hlaing’s SAC, commonly regarded as the chief perpetrators of the campaign of genocide, reorganized its legal team for the ongoing trial, replacing lead defendant Suu Kyi with its foreign minister, Wunna Maung Lwin.
On June 4, Moe Zaw Oo, deputy foreign minister of Burma’s parallel National Unity Government (of which Suu Kyi is still considered State Counsellor), had vowed to drop its defense and work with the ICJ to achieve justice for the Rohingya people.
The ICJ has announced that the next hearing in the case of The Gambia v Myanmar will open on Feb. 21. Gambian Attorney General Dawda Jallow today told Reuters that the case would be a “hybrid hearing” — with participants attending both physically and virtually due to COVID-19.
