THE HAGUE: The International Criminal Court said Thursday it had jurisdiction to probe the forced deportation of Rohingya Muslims by Myanmar’s military as a possible crime against humanity.
Some 700,000 people from the stateless Muslim minority have fled Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state into neighboring Bangladesh since August last year to escape a bloody military crackdown.
The ICC’s “pre-trial chamber... decided by majority the court may exercise jurisdiction over the alleged deportations of the Rohingya people from Myanmar to Bangladesh,” the Hague-based tribunal said in a statement.
The Myanmar government on Thursday declined to comment on the announcement when contacted by AFP.
The move comes days after UN investigators called for an international investigation and prosecution of Myanmar’s army chief and five other top military commanders for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes against the Rohingya.
The violence has left a trail of torched villages in its wake, amid allegations of murder and rape at the hands of troops and vigilantes.
In an unprecedented move in April, the ICC’s chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda asked judges to rule whether she can investigate the deportations as a crime against humanity.
It is a legally complicated request, as Myanmar is not a signatory and member of the Rome Statute which underpins the ICC.
The Southeast Asian nation voiced “serious concern” over the prosecutor’s move, saying that the ICC’s charter in fact did not state that it had jurisdiction to investigate a country that had not signed up to the Rome Statute that governs the court.
Bangladesh, however, is a signatory and the judges said that because the deportations involve a cross-border crime, that gives the court jurisdiction to investigate the plight of the Rohingya.
Bensouda had likened deportation to “a cross-border shooting,” arguing the crime “is not completed until the bullet (fired in one state) strikes and kills the victim (standing in another state).”