Myanmar court sentences Aung San Suu Kyi to six more years in prison on corruption charges News
Claude TRUONG-NGOC, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Myanmar court sentences Aung San Suu Kyi to six more years in prison on corruption charges

A Myanmar court Monday sentenced former State Counsellor and democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi to an additional six years in prison after she was found guilty of corruption charges, according to state media. Suu Kyi was arrested in February 2021 after a military coup and has been subsequently convicted of various offenses on three occasions. This most recent conviction increased her total prison sentence to 17 years.

A special court in Naypyitaw Prison found that Aung San Suu Kyi misused her power to rent public land and that she also diverted charitable donations to build a personal residence.

Several corruption cases have been filed against Aung San Suu Kyi since the military coup in February 2021. There have been 20 charges filed against her including 13 corruption charges. She was charged in April 2022, with corruption and sentenced to five years in prison. She was convicted of accepting about USD $1.3 million in gold and cash from a political colleague. She was also found guilty in January 2022 of charges including the possession of walkie-talkies and the breach of COVID-19 regulations. In December, she was also sentenced to four years in prison for breaking COVID-19 regulations and charges of incitement.

If found guilty of all charges, she faces a combined prison term of 164 years. There have been several critics of the detention of Aung San Suu Kyi with many believing that her detention is politically motivated.

Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign affairs chief said: