BANGKOK-
A military-ruled Myanmar court convicted the country’s former leader Aung San Suu Kyi of corruption and sentenced her to five years in prison on Wednesday in the first of several corruption cases against her.
Suu Kyi, who was ousted in a military takeover last year, denied the allegation that she had accepted gold and hundreds of thousands of dollars that a senior political colleague had given her as a bribe.
Her prosecution is seen by her supporters and independent legal experts as an unfair move to discredit Suu Kyi and legitimize the military’s takeover, while preventing the 76-year-old elected leader from returning to an active role in politics. .
The daughter of Aung San, the founding father of Myanmar, Suu Kyi became a public figure in 1988 during a failed uprising against a previous military government when she helped found the National League for Democracy party. She spent 15 of the next 21 years under house arrest for leading a nonviolent struggle for democracy that earned her the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. When the military allowed an election in 2015, her party won a landslide victory and she became the de facto head of state. Her party won a larger majority in the 2020 polls.
Suu Kyi is widely revered at home for her role in the country’s pro-democracy movement, and has long been seen abroad as an icon of that struggle, epitomized by her years under house arrest.
But she has also been heavily criticized for showing deference to the military while ignoring and sometimes even defending rights violations, most notably a 2017 crackdown on Rohingya Muslims that rights groups have called genocide. While she has disputed allegations that army personnel killed Rohingya civilians, torched houses and raped women and remains hugely popular in her country, that stance has tarnished her reputation abroad.
She has already been sentenced to six years in prison in other cases and faces 10 more charges of corruption. The maximum penalty provided for in the Anti-Corruption Law is 15 years in prison and a fine. The convictions in the other cases could carry sentences of more than 100 years in prison in total.
“These charges will have no credibility except in the eyes of the junta’s stacked courts (and supporters of the military),” said Moe Thuzar, a fellow at the Yusof Ishak Institute, a center for Southeast Asian studies in Singapore. “Even if there were legitimate concerns or complaints about corruption by any member of an elected government, a coup and forced military rule are certainly not the way to address such concerns.”
News of Wednesday’s verdict came from a legal official who asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to release such information. Suu Kyi’s trial in the capital Naypyitaw was closed to the media, diplomats and spectators, and his lawyers were not allowed to speak 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 military seized power on February 1, 2021, arresting Suu Kyi and many high level colleagues in his party and government. . The military claimed it acted because of massive electoral fraud, but independent election monitors found no major irregularities.
The inauguration was met with large non-violent protests across the country, which security forces put down with lethal force that has so far killed nearly 1,800 civilians, according to a watchdog group, the Association for Assistance to Political Prisoners. .
As the crackdown increased, armed resistance against the military government grew, and some UN experts now characterize the country as being in a state of civil war.
Suu Kyi has not been seen or allowed to speak in public since her arrest and is being held at an undisclosed location. However, at last week’s final hearing in the case, he appeared to be in good health and asked his supporters to “stay together,” said a legal official familiar with the proceedings who asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to release information. . .
In previous cases, Suu Kyi was sentenced to six years in prison for illegally importing and possessing walkie-talkies, violating coronavirus restrictions, and sedition.
In the case decided on Wednesday, she was accused of receiving $600,000 and seven gold bars in 2017-18 from Phyo Min Thein, a former chief minister of Yangon, the country’s largest city and a senior member of her political party. Her attorneys, before receiving gag orders late last year, said she dismissed all of her testimony against her as “absurd.”
The other nine cases currently being tried under the Anti-Corruption Law include several related to the purchase and rental of a helicopter by one of his former cabinet ministers. Violations of the law carry a maximum penalty for each offense of 15 years in prison and a fine.
Suu Kyi is also accused of siphoning off charitable donation money to build a residence and abusing her position to obtain below-market rental properties for a foundation named after her mother. The state Anti-Corruption Commission has stated that several of her alleged actions deprived the state of revenue that she would otherwise have earned.
Another corruption charge alleging that he accepted a bribe has not yet gone to trial.
Suu Kyi is also being tried on the charge of violating the Official Secrets Act, which carries a maximum sentence of 14 years, and on the charge of electoral fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of three years.
“Aung San Suu Kyi’s days as a free woman are indeed over. Myanmar’s junta and the country’s kangaroo courts are walking in unison to lock Aung San Suu Kyi up for what could ultimately be the equivalent of a life sentence.” given her advanced age,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Destroying people’s democracy in Myanmar also means getting rid of Aung San Suu Kyi, and the junta leaves nothing to chance.”
Reference-www.ctvnews.ca