YANGON, Myanmar — A Myanmar junta court
jailed
Aung San Suu Kyi for six years for corruption on Monday, a source close
to the case said, taking the ousted leader’s prison time to 17 years.
اضافة اعلان
Suu Kyi, 77, has been detained since the generals
toppled her government in a coup on February 1 last year, ending the Southeast
Asian country’s brief period of democracy.
She has since been hit with a series of charges,
including violating the official secrets act, corruption, and electoral fraud.
She faces decades in jail if convicted on all counts.
Suu Kyi was sentenced to “six years imprisonment
under four anti-corruption charges”, said the source, who requested anonymity
because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Each charge carried a maximum of 15 years in jail.
Suu Kyi was sentenced to three years for each, but three of the sentences would
be served concurrently, the source said.
She appeared in good health and did not make any
statement following the sentencing, they added.
A junta spokesman could not be reached for comment.
The Nobel laureate had already been sentenced to 11
years in jail for corruption, incitement against the military, breaching
COVID-19 rules, and breaking a telecommunications law.
Journalists have been barred from attending the
court hearings and Suu Kyi’s lawyers have been banned from speaking to the
media.
The United States slammed the latest sentencing as
an “affront to justice and the rule of law”.
“We call on the regime to immediately release Aung
San Suu Kyi and all those unjustly detained, including other democratically
elected officials,” a State Department spokesperson said.
The coup sparked widespread protests and unrest, and
renewed fighting with established ethnic rebel groups.
Dozens of “People’s Defense Forces” have also sprung
up to fight the junta and have surprised the military with their effectiveness,
analysts say.
According to a local monitoring group, the crackdown
has left more than 2,000 civilians dead and seen some 17,000 arrested.
‘Erase the past’
Suu Kyi has been the face of
Myanmar’s democratic hopes for more than 30 years, but her earlier 11-year
sentence already meant she was likely to miss elections the junta says it plans
to hold by next year.
“Immune from domestic and international outrage, the
punishment trials against Suu Kyi and her supporters are designed to erase the
democratic past,” independent Myanmar analyst David Mathieson told AFP.
“Their intent is clear to everyone it seems,
everyone but the international community.”
In June, Suu Kyi was transferred from house arrest
to a prison in the capital Naypyidaw, where her trial continues in a courthouse
inside the prison compound.
She remains confined to the jail, with her link to
the outside world limited to brief pre-trial meetings with lawyers.
Many of her political allies have also been arrested
since the coup, with one chief minister sentenced to 75 years in jail.
Last month, the junta stoked renewed international
condemnation when it executed Phyo Zeya Thaw, a former lawmaker from her
National League for Democracy (NLD) party, for offences under anti-terrorism
laws.
Suu Kyi learned of the execution at a pre-trial
hearing, a source with knowledge of the matter said, but has yet to speak on
the matter.
The junta says it seized power following massive
fraud during 2020 elections in which the NLD trounced a military-backed party
and which international observers said were largely free and fair.
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