YANGON: A Myanmar junta court on Wednesday found ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi guilty of corruption and sentenced her to five years in prison, a source familiar with the matter said.
Since a military coup deposed her government in February last year, plunging the country into upheaval, Suu Kyi has faced a barrage of criminal cases that could see her jailed for decades. In the latest case, the Nobel laureate -- who has been in military custody since the night of the coup -- was accused of accepting a bribe of $600,000 cash and gold bars.
After two days of delays, the special court in the military-built capital Naypyidaw handed down its verdict and sentence at 9:30 am (0300 GMT) on Thursday, the source said. She 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.
Journalists have been barred from attending the court hearings and Suu Kyi’s lawyers have been banned from speaking to the media. More than 1,700 people have been killed and over 13,000 arrested in a crackdown on dissent since the coup, according to a local monitoring group.
"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."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. Meanwhile, the European Union on Wednesday slammed a five-year jail sentence given by a Myanmar junta court to deposed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi at a “politically motivated” trial.
“It represents another step towards the dismantling of the rule of law and a further blatant violation of human rights in Myanmar and yet another major setback for democracy in Myanmar since the military coup on 1 February 2021,” an EU spokesperson said in a statement.