New Delhi: A Myanmar court on Monday convicted the country’s ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi in more corruption cases and added six years to the prison sentence, as reported by AP. The trial was held in secret, with no entrance for media or people in general, and her legal counselors were forbidden by a gag order from uncovering data about the proceedings.
Suu Kyi was claimed to have mishandled her position to rent public land at underneath market costs and to have fabricated a home with donations implied for charitable purposes in four corruption cases decided Monday.
She received sentences of three years for each of the four counts, yet the sentences for three of them will be served simultaneously, giving her a total of six additional years in jail.
She denied every one of the charges, and her lawyers are expected to appeal.
She previously had been condemned to 11 years in jail on sedition, corruption and different charges at earlier trials after the military removed her elected government and detained her in February 2021.
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The various charges against her and her allies are an attempt to legitimize the military’s seizure of power while taking out her from politics before the military holds an election it has promised for next year, said analysts.
Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party won a landslide victory in the 2020 general election, but lawmakers were not allowed to take their seats when the army seized power on Feb 1, 2021, arresting Suu Kyi and many senior colleagues in her party and government. The army claimed it acted because there had been massive electoral fraud, but independent election observers didn't find any major irregularities.
The takeover was met with large nonviolent protests nationwide, which security forces quashed with lethal force that has so far led to the deaths of almost 1,800 civilians, according to a watchdog group, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.