Deposed Burmese leader convicted 14th time since military coup last year, to spend 26 years in jail
ISTANBUL
Incarcerated Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi was served two more three-year jail terms over corruption on Wednesday.
This is her 14th conviction and the prison term totals 26 years since the military overthrew her government in February last year while she still faces five more charges.
According to Myanmar Now news website, the military council of junta-ruled Myanmar sentenced former State Counsellor Suu Kyi to two more three-year prison terms which will be served concurrently.
“The convictions are related to allegations against Suu Kyi made by businessman Maung Weik in March 2021, who in testimony recorded by the junta accused the State Counsellor of accepting more than US$550,000 in bribes on the four occasions they met between 2018 and 2020,” the report said.
Last month, Suu Kyi and her Australian economic adviser were sentenced to three years in prison on charges of violation of the official secret act.
Earlier, a military court had sentenced Suu Kyi to three years in prison on charges of election fraud.
In June, the military regime moved her to prison and placed her in solitary confinement.
After her ouster in a military coup on Feb. 24, 2021, Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest until April this year, when she was shifted to an unknown location, believed to be Naypyitaw Prison in Myanmar’s capital.
Suu Kyi previously spent around 15 years under house arrest during different junta regimes in the Buddhist-majority country.
She has been imprisoned for the second time since 2009. The then-junta regime had transferred her to Yangon’s Insein Prison for four months earlier that year for “violating the rules of her house arrest.”
Suu Kyi’s government was deposed after her party National League for Democracy won the national elections in November 2020.
The coup was met with widespread civic unrest as people denounced her removal and military rule. The junta repressed protests violently, despite UN warnings that the country had descended into civil war.
The UN rights office has said at least 2,316 people, including at least 188 children, have been killed in Myanmar since the military seized power.
