(Naypyidaw) The river trial of ousted Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi, overthrown by the army in early 2021, ended on Friday with an additional seven-year prison sentence for corruption, a total of 33 years behind bars .
This verdict was denounced by both the United States and the European Union. It is an “affront to justice and the rule of law”, declared the American Department of Foreign Affairs, while the European Commission deplored “the general dismantling of democracy” in Burma.
The famous 77-year-old opponent, Nobel Peace Prize 1991, appeared in “good health” according to a judicial source. She could end up in prison a life marked by her fight for democracy.
Mme Suu Kyi has been incarcerated since the military coup of 1er February 2021 which ended a brief period of freedom in this Southeast Asian country with a turbulent history.
A court in the capital Naypyidaw, which sits exceptionally in the penitentiary center where she was placed in solitary confinement, found the ex-leader guilty on Friday of five counts of corruption against her.
Burmese ex-president Win Myint, co-accused in this last part of the trial, received the same sentence as her and both will appeal, according to the same source.
In a case of helicopter rental for a minister, Mme Suu Kyi was accused of breaking the rules and causing “loss to the state”.
PHOTO SOE ZEYA TUN, REUTERS ARCHIVES
Aung San Suu Kyi in 2017
“All her cases are over, there are no more charges against her,” said the judicial source, who requested anonymity.
Corruption, electoral fraud, violation of state secrets and anti-COVID-19 restrictions… Since the start of the legal proceedings in June 2021, Aung San Suu Kyi has been convicted of multiple offences.
The end of his 18-month long trial, described as a sham by human rights groups, opens a new period of uncertainty in Burma, with the prospect of elections in 2023 promised by the junta, in search of legitimacy.
UN resolution
The two most recent legislative elections, in 2015 and 2020, propelled the National League for Democracy (NLD), the emblematic party founded by Aung San Suu Kyi in the late 1980s, to power.
The army justified its 2021 coup by claiming to have discovered millions of irregular ballots during the last vote, considered to be generally free by international observers.
His plan to hold new elections has been criticized by the United States, but welcomed by its close ally and arms supplier, Russia.
The UN Security Council this month called for the immediate release of Aung San Suu Kyi, in its first resolution in decades on the situation in Burma.
This call, which came in a rare moment of unity, was made possible thanks to the abstention of China and Russia, usual supporters of Naypyidaw.
“Judicial prank”
Since the putsch, Mme Suu Kyi has only been seen very rarely, in grainy photos taken by state media in an empty courtroom.
She could serve part of her prison sentence under house arrest, experts say.
Her multiple convictions are “synonymous with life imprisonment” given the age of the detainee, reacted Phil Robertson, deputy director for Asia for the NGO Human Rights Watch.
“It’s the end of a legal farce. The question now is what the regime will do with Aung San Suu Kyi – allow her to serve her sentence under house arrest, or allow her to meet foreign envoys. But the regime is unlikely to rush to make such decisions,” said Richard Horsey, Myanmar expert with the International Crisis Group (ICG).
Aung San Suu Kyi remains a popular figure in Burma, even if her international image has been damaged by her inability to defend the Muslim minority of the Rohingyas, victim of abuses by the army in 2016 and 2017 – a “genocide” according to Washington.
Burma descended after the coup into a period of chaos, with daily violence between the army and self-constituted militias who accuse each other of killing hundreds of civilians.
More than 2,600 people have been killed under the junta’s repression, according to a local NGO. The army recorded on its side 4000 civilians killed.
“The army has turned the courts and prisons into hell for human rights,” said Meg de Ronde, regional director of Amnesty International. This verdict shows that “we must put more pressure on the Burmese junta, and quickly”.