Former Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi, ousted after the February 2021 military coup, has been sentenced to an additional six years in prison for two corruption cases, a source close to AFP told AFP on Wednesday. folder.
Convicted of accepting $550,000 in bribes
The 77-year-old 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner was sentenced to “two three-year prison terms” which were combined, a source familiar with the matter told AFP, meaning she must spend three years behind bars for these two cases. Aung San Suu Kyi “is in good health. Her lawyers will appeal as for the other cases”, indicated this source.
She was found guilty of accepting $550,000 in bribes from local businessman Maung Weik.
A state broadcaster last year aired a video confession of the businessman confessing that he gave $550,000 over several years to Aung San Suu Kyi. He handed out money to officials from his party, the National League for Democracy, to help his business, he said.
Already sentenced to 23 years in prison for various reasons
Arrested at the time of the putsch, which ended a decade of democratic transition in Burma, the ousted leader was placed in solitary confinement in a prison in Naypyidaw at the end of June, hence her trial, which started more than a year, continues behind closed doors.
She had already been sentenced to 23 years in prison for various reasons, including electoral fraud and corruption. In all, she faces more than 120 years behind bars.
Aung San Suu Kyi proclaims her innocence
Aung San Suu Kyi, who claims her innocence, is also accused in five other corruption cases, which could increase her total prison term. Many voices denounce a judicial harassment which would be based on political motives, with the aim of definitively dismissing the daughter of the hero of independence, big winner of the elections of 2015 and 2020.
Several of his relatives were given heavy sentences. A former member of his party sentenced to death, Phyo Zeya Thaw, was executed at the end of July.
The junta defends itself from these accusations and even promises to open negotiations with Aung San Suu Kyi once her trial is over. The army also hopes to organize elections in the summer of 2023, as soon as the country is “in peace and stability”, according to its leader Min Aung Hlaing who also announced a “reform” of the electoral system.
Over 2,300 civilians killed since coup
Since the coup that plunged the country into a bloody conflict, more than 2,300 civilians have been killed by the security forces, according to a count by a local NGO. The junta, which accuses its adversaries, has more than 3,900. The United Nations, which denounced “increasing evidence” of crimes against humanity targeting women and children, said in early October that 1.3 million civilians were still displaced due to hostilities.
Isolated on the international scene, Burma was not invited to the next summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in November in Cambodia.