BANGKOK— A military-ruled Myanmar court on Friday convicted the country's ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi of corruption, sentencing her to seven years in prison in the latest in a series of criminal cases against her, a legal official said.
The court action leaves her with a total of 33 years to serve in prison following a string of politically motivated criminal cases since the military overthrew her elected government in February 2021.
The case that concluded on Friday involved five offenses under the anti-corruption law and followed previous convictions on seven other bribery charges, each of which was punishable by up to 15 years' imprisonment and a fine.
77-year-old Suu Kyi was also convicted of several other crimes, including illegal importation and possession of walkie-talkies, violating coronavirus restrictions, violating the country's official secrets law, sedition and electoral fraud.
All of her previous convictions had carried her to a total of 26 years in prison.
Suu Kyi's supporters and independent analysts say the numerous allegations against her and her allies are an attempt to legitimize the military's seizure of power, eliminating her from politics ahead of the elections she has promised for next year.
In the five counts of corruption decided on Friday, Suu Kyi allegedly 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 of her former government, to hire , buy and maintain a helicopter.
Suu Kyi was the de facto head of government, with the title of state councilor. Win Myint, who was president of his government, was a co-defendant in the same case.
Friday's verdict in the designated courtroom of the main prison on the outskirts of the capital, Naypyitaw, was announced 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 his lawyers were barred from speaking under a silence order.
The legal official said Suu Kyi received three-year sentences for each of the four charges, to be served concurrently, and four years for the helicopter purchase charge, for a total of seven years. Win Myint received the same sentences.
The defendants have denied all charges and his lawyers are expected to file an appeal in the coming days.
The end of the court proceedings against Suu Kyi, at least for now, raises the possibility that she will be allowed outside visits, which she has been denied since her detention.
The military government has repeatedly denied all requests to meet with her, including from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which seeks to help broker an end to the crisis in Myanmar that some UN experts have called a civil war. due to armed opposition to military rule.
The UN announced after its special envoy, Noeleen Heyzer, met in August with senior general Min Aung Hlaing, head of the military government of Myanmar, who “expressed willingness to arrange a meeting at the right time” between she and Suu Kyi.
A military government statement said: “Depending on the circumstances after the completion of the judicial process, we will consider how to proceed.”
Suu Kyi is currently being held in a newly constructed separate building in Naypyitaw Jail, close to the courthouse where her trial took place, with three female police officers whose job it is to assist her.
Allowing Suu Kyi access was a major demand from many international critics of Myanmar's military rulers, who have faced diplomatic and political sanctions for their human rights violations and suppression of democracy.
State media reported last year that Win Myat Aye, the figure at the center of the corruption case that ended on Friday, used the chartered helicopter for just 84.95 hours between 2019 and 2021, but paid a total of 720 flight hours, resulting in a loss of over $3.5 million in funds.
State-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper said it also failed to follow official procedures in purchasing the state-owned helicopter, resulting in a further $11 million loss.
Win Myat Aye is now minister of humanitarian affairs and disaster management in the national unity government set up as a parallel administration by elected lawmakers who were prevented from taking their seats when the military took over last year. The military has declared the NUG to be an outlawed “terrorist organization”.
Suu Kyi, the daughter of martyred Myanmar independence hero General Aung San, spent nearly 15 years as a political prisoner under house arrest between 1989 and 2010.
Her tough stance against the military rule in Myanmar turned her into a symbol of the nonviolent struggle for democracy and earned her the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.
His party, the National League for Democracy, initially came to power after handily winning the 2015 general election, ushering in genuine civilian rule for the first time since the 1962 military coup.
But after coming to power, Suu Kyi has been criticized for showing deference to the military by ignoring the atrocities she is credibly accused of committing in a 2017 crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority.
His National League for Democracy again won a landslide victory in the 2020 election, but less than three months later, elected lawmakers were barred from taking their seats in Parliament and top members of his government and his party arrested.
The army said it acted because there had been massive electoral fraud in the 2020 election, but independent election observers found no major irregularities.
The military takeover in 2021 triggered widespread peaceful protests which the security forces tried to put down with deadly force and which soon escalated into armed resistance.
According to a detailed list compiled by the Political Prisoners Assistance Association, a non-governmental organization that tracks killings and arrests, the Myanmar security forces killed at least 2,685 civilians and arrested 16,651.
On Wednesday last week, the UN Security Council called on Myanmar's military rulers to release all “arbitrarily detained” prisoners, including Suu Kyi, in its first resolution on the situation in Myanmar since the military took over .
The UN resolution also calls for an immediate end to the violence in Myanmar and urges all parts of the country to work to initiate dialogue and reconciliation aimed at resolving the crisis peacefully.
Myanmar's foreign ministry has retorted that the situation in the south-east Asian country concerns exclusively internal affairs that do not jeopardize international peace and security.
[Disclaimer: This story was automatically generated by a computer program and was not created or edited by Journalpur Staff. Publisher: Journalpur.com]
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