The former Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi, already sentenced to eleven years in prison, suffered on Monday an additional six years in prison for corruption.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner, charged with a multitude of offenses by the junta in power since the February 2021 coup, faces decades in prison at the end of her river trial. Four counts of corruption have been brought against her.
A trial behind closed doors
Aung San Suu Kyi, 77, appeared in good health in court, and did not comment after the judgment was read, according to this source. Arrested at the time of the military coup of February 1, 2021 which ended a decade of democratic transition in Burma, she was placed in solitary confinement in a prison in Naypyidaw at the end of June.
His trial, which began more than a year ago, continues inside the penitentiary center. The latter is held behind closed doors, his lawyers being prohibited from speaking to the press and international organizations. It is targeted by a multitude of offences: violation of a law on state secrets dating from the colonial era, electoral fraud, sedition, corruption…
Several relatives also sentenced
Many observers denounce this procedure solely motivated, according to them, by political considerations: definitively excluding Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of the hero of independence and big winner of the 2015 and 2020 elections, from the political arena.
Several relatives of the 1991 Nobel Prize winner have already been sentenced to heavy sentences. A former member of his party, the National League for Democracy (LND), was executed in July, along with three other pro-democracy activists sentenced to death.
Chaos since February 2021
Aung San Suu Kyi spent nearly fifteen years under house arrest under previous military dictatorships. The February 2021 coup plunged the country into chaos. Nearly 2,100 civilians were killed by security forces and 15,000 arrested, according to a local NGO.
The army seized power by force under the pretext of alleged fraud in the previous year’s elections, which was overwhelmingly won by Aung San Suu Kyi’s party. The junta promises a new poll in 2023.