A Myanmar junta court yesterday sentenced ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi to another six years in prison for corruption, a source with knowledge of the case said, taking the Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s total jail time to 26 years.
Aung San Suu Kyi, 77, has been detained since the Burmese military toppled her administration in a coup on Feb. 1 last year, ending the country’s brief period of democracy.
She has since been convicted on a clutch of charges, including breaching an official secrets act, electoral fraud and illegally possessing walkie-talkies.
Photo: EPA-EFE
In the latest case, the Nobel laureate was “sentenced to three years imprisonment each for two corruption cases,” in which she had been accused of taking bribes from a businessman, the source said.
The businessman, Maung Weik, last year appeared in a video televised by a military broadcaster claiming he had given Aung San Suu Kyi US$550,000 over several years.
Maung Weik — who was convicted of drug trafficking in 2008 — also said he had donated money to senior figures in the ousted leader’s National League for Democracy for the good of his business.
Photo: EPA-EFE
APPEAL EXPECTED
Aung San Suu Kyi — who denies all charges against her — appeared in good health and would appeal the decision, the source added.
She is on trial for five other corruption charges. Each carries a maximum 15 years in prison.
An Amnesty International spokesperson yesterday slammed the trial as a sham that “cannot be taken seriously.”
“Myanmar’s military is heaping trumped-up charge after trumped-up charge on Aung San Suu Kyi as part of a broader campaign to lock up and silence any and all opponents,” they said.
A junta spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
Journalists have been barred from attending the court hearings, and Aung San Suu Kyi’s lawyers have been banned from speaking to the media.
In June, she was transferred from house arrest to a prison in the capital, Naypyidaw, where her trials are held in a courthouse inside the prison compound.
Aung San Suu Kyi has been the face of Myanmar’s democratic hopes for more than 30 years and was previously a political prisoner.
Since February last year, she has once again been confined by the military, with her only link to the outside world now 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.
The Southeast Asian nation has been in turmoil since the military seized power, sparking widespread armed resistance.
The junta has responded with a crackdown that rights groups say includes razing villages, mass extrajudicial killings and airstrikes on civilians.
More than 1 million people have been displaced since the coup, the UN estimates.
More than 2,300 people have been killed and more than 15,000 arrested since the military seized power, a local monitoring group said.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
RSS