Kyaw Zwar Minn was expelled from his embassy months after the February 2021 coup and then replaced by a junta representative after calling for the release of Myanmar’s civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Since his protest, which was praised by the British government at the time, Kyaw Zwar Minn has lived in the ambassador’s residence in north west London, a large house surrounded by barbed wire and CCTV cameras. He has refused to return his home to the British government. He refused to return it to the embassy, ​​which he said was now run by representatives of an illegitimate government.

Britain last year urged Kyaw Zwar Minn to leave the residence, under pressure from the junta, Reuters reports.

Earlier this week, Kyaw Zwar Minn was questioned by police on “allegations that he was in diplomatic territory,” said Neil Swift, his London-based attorney at Peters & Peters. This offense carries a penalty of up to six months in prison or a fine or both.

“The ambassador’s residence remains the property of the Union of Myanmar, and my client has always maintained that he is very willing to hand over the keys to representatives of the democratically elected government of Myanmar, if they ask him to,” Swift told Reuters. .

The Myanmar Embassy in London, the British Foreign Office and the London Metropolitan Police did not respond to requests for comment.

Kyaw Zwar Minn was questioned by police on Aug. 15, but no charges have yet been filed, Swift said. Britain’s attorney general will have to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to charge him, he said.

If an indictment is brought, the issue risks becoming politically heated, given Britain’s previous support for Kyaw Zwar Minn and the sanctions imposed on the junta since the coup and its bloody crackdown on the rival resistance movement in which soldiers have fought in several countries. front.

Chris Gunness of rights group the Myanmar Accountability Project said it was “unimaginable that the British authorities, who have condemned the coup and imposed economic sanctions on the generals, would allow this act to be perpetrated by an illegal junta”.

Britain is one of the Western countries calling for the restoration of democracy in Myanmar and imposing sanctions on members of the Myanmar military and some of its business interests.

Ousted Myanmar politicians who evaded arrest after the coup and other pro-democracy allies formed the Government of National Unity (NUG), a parallel government aligned with Suu Kyi’s.

Most democratic countries, including the UK, have not officially recognized either the NUG or the junta.

But in July 2021, Myanmar’s junta appointed an interim head of its new embassy in London, a move that does not require British government approval under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.