YANGON: A Myanmar junta court on Wednesday sentenced Aung San Suu Kyi to five years in prison for corruption, part of a series of criminal cases that could land the deposed civilian leader in jail for decades.
Since a military coup toppled her government in February last year and plunged Myanmar into turmoil, Suu Kyi has been in military custody.
In the latest case, the Nobel laureate was accused of accepting a $600,000 bribe in cash and gold bullion.
After two days of delays, the special court in the army-built capital Naypyidaw delivered its verdict and sentence at 9:30 am (0300 GMT) on Wednesday.
“On the theft of gold and dollars from U Phyo Min Thein, the court sentenced her to five years in prison,” spokesman for the board, Zaw Min Tun, told AFP.
“He will be under house arrest. I don’t know if he asked for an appeal. They are working according to the legal form. As far as I know, he is in good health.”
She still faces a host of other criminal charges, including violation of official secrets law, corruption and election 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 prison for incitement against the military, violating covid-19 rules and violating a telecommunications law, although she will remain under house arrest while she fights other charges.
Journalists have been banned from attending court hearings and Suu Kyi’s lawyers have been banned from speaking to the media.
Under a previous junta regime, Suu Kyi spent long periods under house arrest at her family’s mansion in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city.
Currently confined to an undisclosed location in the capital, her liaison with the outside world is limited to brief pre-trial meetings with her lawyers.
“Aung San Suu Kyi’s days as a free woman are over,” Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, told AFP.
“Destroying people’s democracy in Myanmar also means getting rid of Aung San Suu Kyi, and the junta leaves nothing to chance.”
Turmoil, investor flight
The coup sparked widespread protests and riots that the military attempted to quell by force.
According to a local watchdog group, the crackdown has left more than 1,700 civilians dead and some 13,000 arrested.
Suu Kyi has been the face of Myanmar’s democratic hopes for more than 30 years, but her previous six-year sentence already meant she is likely to miss elections the junta has said it plans to hold next year.
Independent Myanmar analyst David Mathieson said the board was using the criminal cases to make Suu Kyi “politically irrelevant”.
“This is just another miserable step to consolidate the coup,” he told AFP.
“This is politically motivated pure and simple.”
Many of his political allies have also been arrested since the coup, with one prime minister sentenced to 75 years in jail, while many others have been forced into hiding.
A group of ousted lawmakers from their National League for Democracy (NLD) formed a parallel “National Unity Government” (NUG) in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the junta.
However, the NUG has no territory and has not been recognized by any foreign government.
Numerous civilian militias of the “People’s Defense Force” (PDF) have sprung up across the country to take the fight to the junta.
Analysts say Myanmar’s well-trained and heavily armed military was surprised by the effectiveness of the PDFs and in some areas struggled to contain them.
Last week, the junta’s 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 fighting the army for decades.
The turmoil that has engulfed Myanmar in the wake of the coup has scared off 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 announced plans to pull out.