BANGKOK: A court in military-ruled Myanmar convicted the country’s ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi of corruption Friday, sentencing her to seven years in prison in the last of a string of criminal cases against her, a legal official said.
The court’s action leaves her with a total of 33 years to serve in prison after a series of politically tinged prosecutions since the army toppled her elected government in February 2021.
The case that ended Friday involved five offenses under the anti-corruption law and followed earlier convictions on seven other corruption counts, each of which was punishable by up to 15 years in prison and a fine.
The 77-year-old Suu Kyi has also been convicted of several other offenses, including illegally importing and possessing walkie-talkies, violating coronavirus restrictions, breaching the country’s official secrets act, sedition and election fraud.
Her previous convictions had landed her with a total of 26 years’ imprisonment.
Suu Kyi’s supporters and independent analysts say the numerous charges against her and her allies are an attempt to legitimize the military’s seizure of power while eliminating her from politics before an election it has promised for 2023.
In the five counts of corruption decided Friday, Suu Kyi was alleged to have abused her position and caused a loss of state funds by neglecting to follow financial regulations in granting permission to Win Myat Aye, a Cabinet member in her former government, to hire, buy and maintain a helicopter.
Suu Kyi was the de facto head of government, holding the title of state counsellor. Win Myint, who was president in her government, was a co-defendant in the same case.
Friday’s verdict, delivered on the outskirts of the capital Naypyitaw, was made known by a legal official who insisted on anonymity for fear of being punished by the authorities. The trial was closed to the media, diplomats and spectators, and her lawyers were barred by a gag order from talking about it.
The legal official said Suu Kyi received sentences of three years for each of four charges, to be served concurrently, and four years for the charge related to the helicopter purchase, for a total of seven years. Win Myint received the same sentences.
Win Myat Aye, at the center of the case, escaped arrest and is now Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management in the National Unity Government, established by the military’s opponents as a parallel administration by elected legislators who were barred from taking their seats when the army seized power last year. The military has declared NUG to be an outlawed “terrorist organization.”
The defendants denied all charges, and her lawyers are expected to appeal in the coming days. The official also said both Suu Kyi and Win Myint appeared to be in good health.
Cases against Suu Kyi were manufactured and court verdicts predetermined by the military, Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said in an emailed statement.
“Due process and a free and fair trial were never remotely possible under the circumstances of this political persecution against her,” he added.
The end of the court cases against Suu Kyi, at least for now, raises the possibility that she would be allowed outside visitors, which she has been denied since she was detained.
Myanmar’s military rulers, who have faced diplomatic and political sanctions for their human rights abuses and suppression of democracy, have repeatedly denied all requests to meet with her, including from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which seeks to help mediate an end to the crisis in Myanmar that some United Nations experts have characterized as a civil war because of the armed opposition to military rule.
An August statement from the military government said that, “depending on the circumstances after the completion of the judiciary process, we will consider how to proceed.”
Due to her age, the 33 years in prison that Suu Kyi now faces “amount to an effective life sentence against her,” said Robertson, adding that the convictions were aimed at keeping her out of politics and undermining her party’s landslide 2020 election victory.
Nay Phone Latt, a spokesperson for the National Unity Government opposition group, charged Myanmar’s judiciary with being “completely unjust.”
He said in a online message that the ruling military council might release Suu Kyi and other prisoners or make similar gestures if it is necessary for their own interests, but revolutionary forces would move forward without losing sight of their goal of a democratic federal union without the involvement of the military.
Suu Kyi is being held in a newly constructed separate building in the prison in Naypyitaw, near the courthouse where her trial was held, with three policewomen whose duty is to assist her.
Suu Kyi, the daughter of Myanmar’s martyred independence hero Gen. Aung San, spent almost 15 years as a political prisoner under house arrest between 1989 and 2010.
Her tough stand against the military rule in Myanmar turned her into a symbol of nonviolent struggle for democracy, and won her the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.
Her National League for Democracy party initially came to power after easily winning the 2015 general election, ushering in a true civilian government for the first time since a 1962 military coup.
But after coming to power, Suu Kyi was criticized for showing deference to the military while ignoring atrocities it is credibly accused of committing in a 2017 crackdown on the Muslim Rohingya minority.
Her National League for Democracy won a landslide victory again in the 2020 election, but less than three months afterwards, elected lawmakers were kept from taking their seats in Parliament and top members of her government and party were detained.
The army said it acted because there had been massive voting fraud in the 2020 election, but independent election observers did not find any major irregularities.
The army’s takeover in 2021 triggered widespread peaceful protests that security forces tried to crush with deadly forces and that soon erupted into armed resistance.
Myanmar security forces have killed at least 2,685 civilians and arrested 16,651, according to a detailed list compiled by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a non-governmental organization that tracks killings and arrests.
Court in Myanmar again finds Suu Kyi guilty of corruption
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Court in Myanmar again finds Suu Kyi guilty of corruption
- Oxford-educated Nobel laureate has spent much of her political life in detention under military governments
Shamima Begum’s case revived after top European court’s intervention
- European Court of Human Rights challenges British govt’s citizenship deprivation order
- Begum, 26, left London as a teenager to marry a Daesh fighter, with concerns she was trafficked
LONDON: The longtime appeal by Shamima Begum to return to the UK has been revived after the European Court of Human Rights challenged the British government’s block on her return.
The 26-year-old, who left east London aged 15 and traveled to Daesh-held territory in Syria in 2015, had her British citizenship stripped by the then home secretary, Sajid Javid, The Times reported.
The Strasbourg court’s intervention means the UK must now consider if it acted unlawfully under the framework of the European Convention of Human Rights in stripping her citizenship in 2019.
Begum traveled with two friends to Syria. There, she became a child bride to Dutch national Yago Riedijk and had three children who all died as infants.
The court is examining whether the 2019 decision breached the ECHR’s Article Four, which prohibits slavery, servitude and forced labor.
As part of the examination, it could be found that the UK failed in its duty to identify Begum as a potential victim of trafficking and protect her from harm.
Begum’s journey to Syria made national headlines in the UK. The Times newspaper later discovered her whereabouts at a prison camp in Syria operated by Kurdish security forces, where she remains today.
In stripping her citizenship, Javid said the decision was “conducive to the public good.”
He also argued she was eligible for Bangladeshi nationality through her parents, to avoid rendering her stateless.
However, Bangladesh has said repeatedly that Begum is not a citizen of the country.
Begum’s lawyers, from the firm Birnberg Peirce, filed a submission to the Strasbourg court which argued that the UK failed to ask fundamental questions before stripping her citizenship, including concerns over child trafficking.
Gareth Peirce said the UK could now confront previously ignored questions as a result of the court’s intervention, providing “an unprecedented opportunity.”
She added: “It is impossible to dispute that a 15-year-old British child was lured and deceived for the purposes of sexual exploitation.
“It is equally impossible not to acknowledge the catalogue of failures to protect a child known to be at risk.”
The Strasbourg court’s move meant that it was “impossible now not to have real hope of a resolution,” she said, adding that the Begum case raised profound questions about the UK’s responsibility to victims of grooming and trafficking.
Despite years of litigation, Begum has failed to overturn the citizenship deprivation order. She has stated her desire to return to Britain.
In 2020, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission found that conditions in the camp where she is held, Al-Roj, were inhuman and degrading, but that national security considerations prevented any change to her case.
Later, the Supreme Court ruled that Begum was ineligible to return to Britain to take part in the appeal against her citizenship deprivation.
The Strasbourg court could reject appeals by Begum’s lawyers after considering the UK Home Office’s response to its questions.
If the latest appeal is upheld, however, ministers would have to “take account” of the court’s judgment. The court’s rulings are technically binding but lack an enforcement mechanism.
The Strasbourg court is now set to consider written submissions from both sides before deciding whether the case should proceed to a full hearing. A final judgment could take many months.
A Home Office spokesman said: “The government will always protect the UK and its citizens. That is why Shamima Begum — who posed a national security threat — had her British citizenship revoked and is unable to return to the UK.
“We will robustly defend any decision made to protect our national security.”
Maya Foa, CEO of Reprieve, a charity that has campaigned for the return of women and children from Syria, said: “This case only reached the European court because successive UK governments failed to take simple steps to resolve a common problem.
“While our security allies have all been bringing their people home, Britain has been burying its head in the sand. Casting British men, women and children into a legal black hole is a negligent policy that betrays a lack of faith in our justice system.”
