A Myanmar junta court on Wednesday sentenced Aung San Suu Kyi to five years in jail for corruption, part of a barrage of criminal cases that could see the deposed civilian leader jailed for decades.
Suu Kyi has been in military custody since a coup ousted her government in February last year and plunged Myanmar into turmoil.
In the latest case, the Nobel laureate was accused of accepting a bribe of $600,000 in cash and gold bars.
“Regarding taking gold and dollars from U Phyo Min Thein, the court sentenced her to five years’ imprisonment,” junta spokesperson Zaw Min Tun told AFP.
“She will be under house arrest. I do not know whether she asked for appeal. They are working according to the legal way. As far as I know, she’s in good health.”
Local media, citing unnamed sources close to the court, later reported she plans to appeal Wednesday’s conviction for corruption.
Suu Kyi still faces a raft of other criminal charges, including violating the official secrets act, corruption and electoral fraud, and could be jailed for more than 100 years if convicted on all counts.
The 76-year-old had already been sentenced to six years in jail for incitement against the military, breaching Covid-19 rules and breaking a telecommunications law — although she will remain under house arrest while she fights other charges.
She has not appealed any of those convictions.
Journalists have been barred from attending the court hearings and Suu Kyi’s lawyers have been banned from speaking to the media.
Under a previous junta regime, Suu Kyi spent long spells under house arrest in her family mansion in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city.
Today, she is confined to an undisclosed location in the capital, with her link to the outside world limited to brief pre-trial meetings with her lawyers.
“The days of Aung San Suu Kyi as a free woman are effectively over,” Phil Robertson Deputy Asia Director, Human Rights Watch told AFP.
“Destroying popular democracy in Myanmar also means getting rid of Aung San Suu Kyi, and the junta is leaving nothing to chance.”
– Turmoil, investor flight –
Suu Kyi has been the face of Myanmar’s democratic hopes for more than 30 years / © AFP/File
The coup sparked widespread protests and unrest which the military sought to crush by force.
According to a local monitoring group, the crackdown has left more than 1,700 civilians dead and seen some 13,000 arrested.
Suu Kyi has been the face of Myanmar’s democratic hopes for more than 30 years, but her earlier six-year sentence already meant she is likely to miss elections the junta has said it plans to hold by next year.
Independent Myanmar analyst David Mathieson said the junta was using the criminal cases to make Suu Kyi “politically irrelevant”.
“This is just another squalid step in solidifying the coup,” he told AFP.
“This is politically motivated pure and simple.”
Many of her political allies have also been arrested since the coup, with one chief minister sentenced to 75 years in jail, while many others have been forced into hiding.
A tranche of ousted lawmakers from her National League for Democracy (NLD) formed a parallel “National Unity Government” (NUG) in a bid to undermine the junta’s legitimacy.
Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi / © AFP
However, the NUG holds no territory and has not been recognised by any foreign government.
Numerous “People’s Defence Force” (PDF) civilian militias have sprung up around the country to take the fight to the junta.
Analysts say Myanmar’s heavily armed, well-trained army has been surprised by the effectiveness of the PDFs and in some areas struggled to contain them.
Last week junta supremo Min Aung Hlaing called for peace talks with Myanmar’s long-established ethnic rebel groups — which control large areas of territory and have been battling the military for decades.
The turmoil that has engulfed Myanmar in the wake of the coup has spooked foreign investors who flocked to the country after the dawn of democracy around 2011.
Energy giants TotalEnergies and Chevron, British American Tobacco and Japanese brewer Kirin have all announced plans to pull out.
