BANGKOK, 30 Dec: A court in military-ruled Myanmar convicted the country\u2019s ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi of corruption Friday, sentencing her to seven years in prison in the last of a string of criminal cases against her, a legal official said.
\nThe court\u2019s action leaves her with a total of 33 years to serve in prison after a series of politically tinged prosecutions since the army toppled her elected government in February 2021.
\nThe case that ended Friday involved five offenses under the anti-corruption law and followed earlier convictions on seven other corruption counts, each of which was punishable by up to 15 years in prison and a fine.
\nThe 77-year-old Suu Kyi has also been convicted of several other offenses, including illegally importing and possessing walkie-talkies, violating coronavirus restrictions, breaching the country\u2019s official secrets act, sedition and election fraud.
\nHer previous convictions had landed her with a total of 26 years\u2019 imprisonment.
\nSuu Kyi\u2019s supporters and independent analysts say the numerous charges against her and her allies are an attempt to legitimize the military\u2019s seizure of power while eliminating her from politics before an election it has promised for 2023.
\nIn the five counts of corruption decided Friday, Suu Kyi was alleged to have abused her position and caused a loss of state funds by neglecting to follow financial regulations in granting permission to Win Myat Aye, a Cabinet member in her former government, to hire, buy and maintain a helicopter.
\nSuu Kyi was the de facto head of government, holding the title of state counsellor. Win Myint, who was president in her government, was a co-defendant in the same case.
\nFriday\u2019s verdict in the purpose-built courtroom in the main prison on the outskirts of the capital, Naypyitaw, was made known by a legal official who insisted on anonymity for fear of being punished by the authorities. The trial was closed to the media, diplomats and spectators, and her lawyers were barred by a gag order from talking about it.
\nThe legal official said Suu Kyi received sentences of three years for each of four charges, to be served concurrently, and four years for the charge related to the helicopter purchase, for a total of seven years. Win Myint received the same sentences.
\nWin Myat Aye, at the center of the case, escaped arrest and is now Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management in the National Unity Government, established by the military\u2019s opponents as a parallel administration by elected legislators who were barred from taking their seats when the army seized power last year. The military has declared NUG to be an outlawed \u201cterrorist organization.\u201d
\nThe defendants denied all charges, and her lawyers are expected to appeal in the coming days. The official also said both Suu Kyi and Win Myint appeared to be in good health.
\n\u201cFrom start to finish, the junta grabbed whatever it could to manufacture cases against her with full confidence that the country\u2019s kangaroo courts would come back with whatever punitive judgments the military wanted,\u201d Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said in an emailed statement. \u201cDue process and a free and fair trial were never remotely possible under the circumstances of this political persecution against her.\u201d
\nThe end of the court cases against Suu Kyi, at least for now, raises the possibility that she would be allowed outside visitors, which she has been denied since she was detained.
\nThe military government has repeatedly denied all requests to meet with her, including from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which seeks to help mediate an end to the crisis in Myanmar that some United Nations experts have characterized as a civil war because of the armed opposition to military rule.
\nThe U.N., after its special envoy Noeleen Heyzer met in August with Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, announced the head of Myanmar\u2019s military-installed government, that he \u201cexpressed openness to arranging a meeting at the right time\u201d between her and Suu Kyi.
\nA statement from the military government said. AP<\/p>\n
\n\u201cDepending on the circumstances after the completion of the judiciary process, we will consider how to proceed.\u201d
\nDue to her age, the 33 years in prison that Suu Kyi now faces \u201camount to an effective life sentence against her,\u201d said Robertson.
\n\u201cThe Myanmar junta\u2019s farcical, totally unjust parade of charges and convictions against Aung San Suu Kyi amount to politically motivated punishment designed to hold her behind bars for the rest of her life,\u201d he said. \u201cThe convictions aim to both permanently sideline her, as well as undermine and ultimately negate her NLD party\u2019s landslide victory in the November 2020 election.\u201d
\nSuu Kyi is currently being held in a newly constructed separate building in the prison in Naypyitaw, near the courthouse where her trial was held, with three policewomen whose duty is to assist her.
\nAllowing access to Suu Kyi has been a major demand of the many international critics of Myanmar\u2019s military rulers, who have faced diplomatic and political sanctions for their human rights abuses and suppression of democracy.
\nSuu Kyi, the daughter of Myanmar\u2019s martyred independence hero Gen. Aung San, spent almost 15 years as a political prisoner under house arrest between 1989 and 2010.
\nHer tough stand against the military rule in Myanmar turned her into a symbol of nonviolent struggle for democracy, and won her the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.
\nHer National League for Democracy party initially came to power after easily winning the 2015 general election, ushering in a true civilian government for the first time since a 1962 military coup.
\nBut after coming to power, Suu Kyi was criticized for showing deference to the military while ignoring atrocities it is credibly accused of committing in a 2017 crackdown on the Muslim Rohingya minority.
\nHer National League for Democracy won a landslide victory again in the 2020 election, but less than three months afterwards, elected lawmakers were kept from taking their seats in Parliament and top members of her government and party were detained.
\nThe army said it acted because there had been massive voting fraud in the 2020 election, but independent election observers did not find any major irregularities.
\nThe army\u2019s takeover in 2021 triggered widespread peaceful protests that security forces tried to crush with deadly forces and that soon erupted into armed resistance.
\nMyanmar security forces have killed at least 2,685 civilians and arrested 16,651, according to a detailed list compiled by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a non-governmental organization that tracks killings and arrests.<\/p>\n
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