Myanmar citizen Phyo Hein Htut has been convicted in an American federal court for conspiring to harm a Myanmar diplomat opposed to the military regime, according to a statement released on Monday by the United States’ justice department.
“Htut, 29, a Burmese national residing in New York, was convicted of conspiracy to assault a foreign official,” the press release from the department’s Southern District of New York stated. “Htut was found guilty after an eight-day trial.”
Phyo Hein Htut was arrested in New York in August 2021 on suspicion of planning to assault and possibly assassinate Myanmar’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN), Kyaw Moe Tun.
Having been appointed to the post in 2020 during the National League for Democracy administration, Kyaw Moe Tun remained loyal to the opponents of Myanmar’s coup regime following the military’s seizure of power in February of 2021.
With diplomatic support from the United States and other UN members who did not recognise the Myanmar coup regime’s legitimacy, Kyaw Moe Tun kept his position representing Myanmar in the UN, despite the junta’s attempts to replace him with an ambassador loyal to them.
Phyo Hein Htut, who was living in New York and had worked in Kyaw Moe Tun’s UN office, accepted an advance payment of US$4,000 to harm the ambassador in an attempt to force him to resign.
The payment was reportedly brokered by a Burmese national in his 60s based in Thailand who had supplied arms to the Myanmar military, and by Phyo Hein Htut’s younger accomplice Ye Hein Zaw, another Burmese national living in New York.
“While volunteering on a security team at Myanmar’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations, Phyo Hein Htut betrayed the person he was supposed to be protecting by secretly feeding information about the Ambassador, the Mission, and its personnel to an arms dealer,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, chief officer of the federal judicial district where the trial occurred.
In correspondence with his co-conspirators, Phyo Hein Htut also discussed the possibility of assassinating Kyaw Moe Tun in case he refused to resign. His accomplice, Ye Hein Zaw, was also arrested for his involvement in the plot and pleaded guilty in the same judicial district in December of 2021.
Following the guilty verdict, Phyo Hein Htut faces a maximum of five years in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced on March 14, 2024.
