Burma: Aung San Suu Kyi sentenced for corruption to five additional years in prison

Europe 1 with AFP 11 a.m., April 27, 2022

The Burmese junta is tightening its grip on Aung San Suu Kyi: the former leader was sentenced on Wednesday to an additional five years in prison during a river trial, denounced as political by the international community.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner, who had already been sentenced in recent months to six years in prison, was sentenced this time under the anti-corruption law.

"She remains under house arrest. I don't know if she asked to appeal," junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun told AFP.

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Detained since February 2021, Suu Kyi is said to be in good health

In good health according to a source familiar with the matter interviewed earlier this week, Aung San Suu Kyi, 76, has been detained since the military coup of February 1, 2021 which ended a decade of democratic transition in Burma .

She is targeted for a multitude of offenses (violation of a law on state secrets dating from the colonial era, electoral fraud, sedition, corruption, etc.) and risks decades in prison in total.

In this part, the military regime accuses him of having received 600,000 dollars and more than eleven kilos of gold in bribes from the former minister in charge of the Rangoon region, Phyo Min Thein.

The latter testified in court, claiming to have paid him the gold and silver in exchange for his support.

Aung San Suu Kyi, for her part, rejected these allegations.

The first corruption case brought against the ex-leader

This is the first corruption case brought against the former leader.

In all, a dozen counts of corruption have been brought against her.

The Nobel laureate is serving the beginning of her sentence under house arrest, in the place where she has been held incommunicado for more than a year and where she must remain for the duration of her trial.

The latter is being held behind closed doors in the capital Naypyidaw, his lawyers being prohibited from speaking to the press and international organizations.

Many international observers have denounced this procedure solely motivated, according to them, by political considerations: to definitively exclude Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of the hero of independence and big winner of the 2015 and 2020 elections, from the political arena.

"The political motivation is obvious. This is another sordid step in the consolidation of the coup", denounces David Mathieson, an analyst specializing in the country.

“It is possible that she will end her days in prison”

Given her advanced age, "it is possible that she will end her days in prison", notes Phil Robertson, deputy director of the Asia division of the NGO Human Rights Watch.

"Destroying Burmese democracy means first getting rid of it, the junta leaves nothing to chance".

Several relatives of the Nobel Prize were sentenced to heavy sentences: capital punishment for a former parliamentarian, 75 years in prison for a former minister, twenty years for one of his collaborators.

Others went into exile or went into hiding.

Some of these deposed deputies formed a parallel "national unity government" (NUG), with the aim of undermining the legitimacy of the junta.

But, fifteen months after the coup, the NUG does not control any territory and has not been recognized by any foreign government.

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Burma in chaos since the 2021 coup

Aung San Suu Kyi remains a very popular figure in Burma, even if her international image has been damaged by her inability to defend the Muslim Rohingya minority.

But she has completely disappeared from the radar since her arrest, only appearing in rare snaps taken by state media in court.

And many opponents of the military regime believe that their fight must go beyond the Nobel Prize to try to end the grip of the generals on Burma's politics and economy.

Militias have taken up arms against the junta in several regions of Burma, going against the principle of non-violence advocated by Aung San Suu Kyi.

Last week, junta leader Min Aung Hlaing called for peace talks with ethnic rebel factions that control large swathes of territory and have been battling the military for decades.

The February 2021 coup plunged the country into chaos.

Nearly 1,800 civilians were killed by security forces and more than 13,000 arrested, according to a local NGO.