HAGUE, Netherlands - Representatives of Myanmar's junta are set to contest the World Court's jurisdiction to hear charges that the country committed genocide against its Rohingya minority in a new series of hearings beginning Feb 21, according to the attorney general of Gambia, who initiated the case.

"A hybrid hearing (is) scheduled to begin on February 21st, 2022," Gambian Attorney General Dawda Jallow said. He also stated that Aung San Suu Kyi, who led Myanmar's defense at the initial public hearings in 2019 but has since been removed by the military, has been formally replaced as the country's principal representative in the case.

A hybrid hearing is a procedure in which some participants attend in person while others engage online due to COVID-19 measures.

Following a military-led crackdown in Myanmar in 2017, around 730,000 Rohingya were pushed into filthy camps across the border in Bangladesh. UN investigators said the military campaign was carried out with "genocidal intent."

A spokesperson of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declined to confirm the dates of a fresh hearing.

Suu Kyi, Myanmar's civilian leader at the time, personally attended hearings in The Hague in December 2019 to beg judges to dismiss the case.

She was toppled in a coup in 2021 and has since been condemned to six years in prison and is facing a series of further charges. Protests erupted in response to the army's takeover of the democratically elected government.