SUU KYI HANDED 5-YEAR JAIL TERM FOR CORRUPTION
Former leader ousted in military coup last year and already in prison for other offences faces more ‘bogus’ graft charges, rights group warns
A court in military-ruled Myanmar has convicted the nation’s former leader Aung San Suu Kyi of corruption and sentenced her to five years in jail in the first of many corruption cases against her.
Suu Kyi, who was ousted in a military coup last year, denied the allegation that she had accepted gold and hundreds of thousands of dollars given her as a bribe by a top political colleague.
Independent legal experts and her supporters consider her prosecution an unjust move to discredit Suu Kyi and legitimise the military’s seizure of power while keeping the 76-year-old elected leader from returning to an active role in politics.
She has already been sentenced to six years’ imprisonment in other cases and faces 10 more corruption charges. The maximum punishment under Myanmar’s Anti-Corruption Act is 15 years in prison and a fine. Convictions in the other cases could bring sentences of more than 100 years in prison in total for the Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has already spent years in detention for defying military rule.
News of yesterday’s verdict came from a legal official who requested anonymity because he was not authorised to release such information. Suu Kyi’s trial in the capital Naypyidaw was closed to the media, diplomats and spectators, and her lawyers were barred from speaking to the press.
Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party won a landslide victory in the 2020 general election, but lawmakers were not allowed to take their seats when the army seized power on February 1, 2021, arresting Suu Kyi and many senior colleagues.
The army claimed it acted because there had been electoral fraud, but independent election observers did not find anomalies.
The takeover was met with nonviolent protests nationwide, which security forces quashed with lethal force that has so far led to the deaths of almost 1,800 civilians, according to a watchdog group, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
As repression escalated, armed resistance against the military government grew, with some UN experts characterising the country as being in a state of civil war.
Suu Kyi has not been seen or allowed to speak in public since she was detained and is being held in an undisclosed location.
“The days of Aung San Suu Kyi as a free woman are effectively over,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch. “Myanmar’s junta and the country’s kangaroo courts are walking in lockstep to put Aung San Suu Kyi away for what could ultimately be the equivalent of a life sentence, given her … age.”
“This conviction on bogus corruption charges just piles on more years behind bars.”
At last week’s final hearing in the case, she appeared to be in good health and asked supporters to “stay united”, said an official who requested anonymity.
In earlier cases, Suu Kyi was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment on convictions of illegally importing and possessing walkie-talkies, violating coronavirus restrictions and sedition.
In the case decided yesterday, she was accused of receiving US$600,000 and seven gold bars in 2017-18 from Phyo Min Thein, the former chief minister of Myanmar’s biggest city Yangon and a senior member of her political party. Her lawyers, before they were served with gag orders late last year, said she rejected all his testimony against her as “absurd”.
The nine other cases currently being tried under the AntiCorruption Act include several related to the purchase and rental of a helicopter by one of her former cabinet ministers.
Suu Kyi is also charged with diverting money meant as charitable donations to build a residence, and with misusing her position to obtain rental properties at lower-than-market prices for a foundation named after her mother. Another corruption charge alleging that she accepted a bribe has not yet gone to trial.
She is also being tried on a charge of violating the Official Secrets Act, which carries a maximum sentence of 14 years, and on a charge alleging election fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of three years.
The days of Aung San Suu Kyi as a free woman are effectively over
PHIL ROBERTSON, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH