THE Nobel Peace Prize to Aung San Suu Kyi will not be withdrawn in the light of a United Nations report that said Myanmar’s military carried out mass killings of Muslim Rohingya.

On Monday, UN investigators said Myanmar’s military carried out mass killings and gang rapes with “genocidal intent”, and the commander-in-chief and five generals should be prosecuted for the gravest crimes under international law.

Aung San Suu Kyi, who leads the Myanmar government and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for campaigning for democracy, has been criticised for failing to speak out against the army crackdown in Rakhine State.

“It’s important to remember that a Nobel prize, whether in Physics, Literature or Peace, is awarded for some prize-worthy effort or achievement of the past,” said Olav Njoelstad, the secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

“Aung San Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize for her fight for democracy and freedom up until 1991, the year she was awarded the prize,” he said.

And the rules regulating the Nobel prizes do not allow for a prize to be withdrawn, he added.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee consists of a panel of five Norwegians, mostly former politicians and academics, that reflect the different forces in the Norwegian Parliament.

The other Nobel prizes are awarded in Sweden.

Last year, the head of the Committee, Berit Reiss-Andersen, also said it would not strip the award after previous criticism of Aung San Suu Kyi’s role in the Rohingya crisis.

“We don’t do it. It’s not our task to oversee or censor what a laureate does after the prize has been won,” she said in a television interview.

“The prize winners themselves have to safeguard their own reputations.”

The damning UN report called for military chiefs in Myanmar to face charges of genocide and crimes against humanity for violence against the Rohingya people.

The report is also fiercely critical of Aung San Suu Kyi for failing to intervene and stop the atrocities.

It says the Nobel Peace Prize laureate “has not used her de facto position as head of government, nor her moral authority, to stem or prevent the unfolding events in Rakhine”.

Genocide is the most serious charge against a government — and is rarely proposed by UN investigators — but the report found sufficient evidence which it says warrants investigating and prosecuting.

The call has been backed by the Foreign Office, which said those responsible for the mass killings and gang rapes of the Rohingya must not escape punishment.

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said he would visit Myanmar to seek answers about the “deeply disturbing” treatment of the Rohingya.

“There must never be a hiding place for those who commit these kind of atrocities,” he added.

The report — which calls for the case to be referred to the International Criminal Court in The Hague — took the unusual step of identifying six senior military officers, who it says showed “genocidal intent” and should go on trial.

They include the commander-in-chief, Min Aung Hlainga, his deputy and four other generals.

A three-member UN “fact-finding mission” and their team assembled hundreds of accounts from expatriate Rohingya as well as satellite footage.

The Burmese government sees the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority, as illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh and denies them citizenship.

The military launched its latest crackdown after Rohingya insurgents attacked police posts last August killing several policemen.

According to the medical charity MSF, at least 6700 Rohingya were killed in the first month of violence.

The UN estimates that more than 700,000 have fled the country.

The Burmese government said its operations only targeted militant or insurgent threats.