Legal adviser for Myanmar’s ruling party shot dead

YANGON: A legal adviser for Myanmar’s ruling National League for Democracy was shot dead outside the country’s busiest airport yesterday after returning from a government-led trip to Indonesia.

An unidentified lone gunman killed the veteran lawyer, Ko Ni, and injured two others in front of the main terminal of Yangon International Airport at 5pm, according to San Naing, Ko Ni’s assistant.

“They shot my boss. He is dead. I am beside his body and there’s blood on the floor,” San Naing said.

Images posted on social media appeared to show a pool of blood around the slain lawyer’s head.

Police have detained a suspect, but the motive was unknown so far. Ko Ni was a prominent member of Myanmar’s Muslim minority.

The shooting comes amid heightened communal tensions in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where leader Aung San Suu Kyi is under pressure over a security operation in an area of the country’s northwest that is populated mostly by Muslims.

A police official in the capital, Naypyidaw, said a Myanmar citizen from the central Myanmar city of Mandalay had been arrested.

Ko Ni, a constitutional law expert who advises the party, led by Nobel laureate Suu Kyi, had joined a delegation to Muslim-majority Indonesia – billed as an opportunity to share experiences of on national reconciliation. The group included Myanmar Muslim leaders, some from the mostly stateless Rohingya minority.