Myanmar’s foreign ministry on Monday said the alleged plot in New York against its United Nations (UN) ambassador, Kyaw Moe Tun, had nothing to do with the country and was a domestic case of the United States (US).
“The event is a domestic case in the United States. Judgment must be made in the United States according to US law. It has nothing to do with Myanmar,” The Straits Times quoted the junta government’s statement, read on state television MRTV.
Last week, US prosecutors said two Myanmar citizens had been charged for a plot to attack the country’s UN ambassador, an outspoken opponent of the ruling military government. The envoy has previously refused orders by the junta government asking him to quit.
The alleged conspiracy that the investigators foiled involved hiring assailants to force Kyaw Moe Tun to resign or kill him if he refused, the US officials said last Friday. In this regard, suspects Phyo Hein Htut, 28, and Ye Hein Zaw, 20, were arrested and charged in a federal court on counts for which they could be sentenced to up to five years in prison.
Suspect Phyo Hein Htut told investigators at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that an arms dealer in Thailand contacted him online and offered $5,000 to hire attackers to hurt the ambassador and force him to step down. Phyo Hein Htut and the arms dealer agreed to tamper with the ambassador’s car to cause a crash.
Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun, who represents Myanmar’s former elected civilian government, said that the US has ramped up his security after the revelation. “Reportedly, there is some threat. The police are working on it. The police have provided the necessary security,” he told Reuters.
Jacqueline Maguire, the Assistant Director of the FBI, told Al Jazeera that law enforcement had acted “quickly and diligently” after learning of the potential assassination planned in Westchester County, a suburban area north of New York City, last month. “Our laws apply to everyone in our country, and these men will now face the consequences of allegedly breaking those laws,” she said.
Reacting to the conspiracy on Saturday, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that the threat “fits a disturbing pattern of authoritarian leaders and their supporters reaching across the globe...to persecute and repress journalists, activists, and others who dare speak or stand against them.”
Myanmar’s Junta Says UN Envoy’s Assassination Plot is US “Domestic Case”
Myanmar’s junta government said the assassination plot against its United Nations ambassador, Kyaw Moe Tun, had nothing to do with the country and was a US domestic case.
August 10, 2021
SOURCE: REUTERS