Suu Kyi charged for illegal imports of walkie-talkies
MYANMAR police have filed charges against ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi for illegally importing communications equipment and will be detained until February 15 for investigations.
The move comes on the heels of a military takeover on Monday and the detention of the Nobel Peace laureate and other civilian politicians.
A police request to a court detailing the accusations against Suu Kyi, 75, said six walkie-talkie radios had been found during a search of her home in the capital Naypyitaw. The radios were imported illegally and used without permission, it said.
The document reviewed yesterday requested Suu Kyi’s detention “in order to question witnesses, request evidence and seek legal counsel after questioning the defendant.”
National League for Democracy spokesman Kyi Toe confirmed the charge against Suu Kyi that carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison.
A separate document showed police filed charges against ousted President Win Myint for violating protocols to stop the spread of coronavirus during campaigning for an election last November.
Suu Kyi’s NLD won the election in a landslide but the military claimed it was marred by fraud and justified its seizure of power on those grounds. At the first meeting of the new government on Tuesday, Myanmar’s new leader senior General Min Aung Hlaing said the military government plans to investigate the alleged voter fraud.
The electoral commission had said the vote was fair.
Suu Kyi spent about 15 years under house arrest between 1989 and 2010 as she led the country’s democracy movement. She remains hugely popular at home despite damage to her reputation abroad over the plight of Muslim Rohingya refugees in 2017.
An NLD party official said on
Tuesday he had learned she was under house arrest in the capital and was in good health.
The party said earlier that its offices had been raided in several regions and it urged authorities to stop what it called unlawful acts after its election victory.
Staff at scores of government hospitals across the country of 54 million people stopped work or wore red ribbons as part of a civil disobedience campaign.
The newly formed Myanmar Civil Disobedience Movement said doctors at 70 hospitals and medical departments in 30 towns had joined the protest. It accused the army of putting its interests above a coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 3,100 people in Myanmar, one of the highest tolls in Southeast Asia.
The clatter of pots and pans — and the honking of car horns — also rang out across Yangon on Tuesday after calls for protest went out on social media.