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Two Burmese nationals have been arrested on charges of conspiring to seriously injure or kill the country’s ambassador to the United Nations on American soil, federal prosecutors in New York said on Friday.
The couple, Phyo Hein Htut and Ye Hein Zaw, were living in New York City when they launched the project last month with help from a Thailand-based arms dealer, according to their criminal complaints.
Htut and the arms dealer agreed to a plan to injure Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun as part of an effort to force him to resign from his post, federal prosecutors said. If Tun refused to quit his post, prosecutors said, the arms dealer proposed that the attackers hired by Htut kill him.
The dealer sells weapons to the Burmese military, which overthrew Myanmar’s civilian government earlier this year, according to the complaints.
Shortly after agreeing to the plot, Zaw sent Htut $ 4,000 via an app as a prepayment, prosecutors said. Htut was then caught on a taped phone line telling Zaw that the planned attackers needed an additional $ 1,000 to carry out the attack in Westchester County, where the ambassador lives, according to court documents.
For an additional fee, the attacks could, in essence, “finish off” the ambassador, Htut said, prosecutors said. Zaw agreed to pay the additional $ 1,000 and try to get the extra money, prosecutors said.
Htut was then questioned at an FBI office in New York, according to the complaint. He told investigators that the arms trafficker contacted him while he was staying at the Myanmar mission in New York and that they eventually came up with the plan to tamper with the tires on the ambassador’s car for the make it crash with him inside, according to the complaint. .
It is not known when Htut, 28, and Zaw, 20, were arrested. They were charged with one count of conspiracy to assault and violently attack a foreign official.
“As alleged in today’s federal charges, these defendants have crossed borders and oceans in devising a violent plot against an international leader on American soil,” said NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea.
Htut’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It was not clear if Zaw had hired a lawyer.
A person who answered the phone at the Myanmar Mission in New York said no one was available to comment on the case.
The UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Myanmar, Tom Andrews, posted a tweet that raised a question that court documents do not answer: Who was the ultimate orchestrator of the intended coup?
“I am horrified to learn that an arms supplier to the Burmese army allegedly paid two Burmese nationals to injure or kill UN Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun in New York in connection with a conspiracy to pressure him to resign from his post, “Andrews wrote. “Who was behind this outrage and who will hold them responsible?” “
Abigail williams contributed.
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