A court in Myanmar on Wednesday convicted the country’s former leader Aung San Suu Kyi of corruption and sentenced her to five years in prison, BBC reported. She was found guilty in the first of 11 corruption cases filed against her.
Suu Kyi was ousted following a military takeover in February 2021 and has been under house arrest since then. On Wednesday, a junta court convicted her for accepting a bribe of $6,00,000, or over Rs 4.59 crore, in gold bars and cash from the former head of Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city and region.
Suu Kyi has already been sentenced to six years imprisonment on charges of illegally importing and keeping walkie-talkie, breaching Covid-19 restrictions and sedition. The latest conviction takes her total jail sentence to 11 years.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s lawyers told BBC that they have not been able to meet her yet. Wednesday’s trail was not open to the media and it is not clear if the 76-year-old would be transferred to a prison to serve the sentence.
An unidentified official with knowledge of Wednesday’s proceedings told Reuters that Suu Kyi would file an appeal against the latest verdict.
Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party had won a landslide victory in the 2020 general election, but the Army refused to accept the result citing unsubstantiated allegations of fraud. She and many of of her party members have been arrested by the junta since they seized power.
The Nobel laureate has not been seen or allowed to speak to the media after her arrest. She is being held in an undisclosed location.
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