Suu Kyi sentenced to 3 more years in prison for electoral fraud

The harassment and overthrow of Burma's coup military junta against the leader deposed by arms, Aung San Suu Kyi, added another chapter this Friday with a new sentence of three years in prison and hard labor for electoral fraud.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
02 September 2022 Friday 02:30
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Suu Kyi sentenced to 3 more years in prison for electoral fraud

The harassment and overthrow of Burma's coup military junta against the leader deposed by arms, Aung San Suu Kyi, added another chapter this Friday with a new sentence of three years in prison and hard labor for electoral fraud.

In total, the Burmese Nobel Peace Prize winner has already accumulated a 20-year prison sentence since her arrest after the riot for various charges of which she pleads not guilty, and she still has several more open trials.

According to local media Myanmar Now, a court located inside a detention center in the capital, Naypyidaw, convicted Suu Kyi, 77, and two other members of her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD). ), of fraud in the elections held in November 2020. The military authorities accuse them of the alleged discovery of 2,000 repeated votes in that appointment with the polls.

The other two convicted are two important allies of 'The Lady' and heavyweights in local politics: the president who was also deposed, Win Myint, and the former minister of the Office of the Government of the Union, Min Thu, who received the same sentence after a process carried out behind closed doors.

In those 2020 elections, Suu Kyi's NLD won a landslide victory at the polls against the political allies of the uniformed men. As in 2015, international observers vouched for his victory.

But the military, led by General Min Aung Hlaing, maintained from the beginning - without evidence - that electoral fraud had been committed, the excuse they used to carry out a coup in February 2021 and take power by arms.

Since then, Suu Kyi and her main allies remain under arrest and subjected to multiple criminal proceedings.

Last December, the Nobel was sentenced to four years - later reduced to two by a partial pardon from the military junta - for violating the laws against the pandemic and inciting against the authorities. In January, she added another four years for skipping measures against the spread of covid and illegally importing several walkie-talkies.

Four months later came a five-year sentence for accepting bribes worth $600,000 and 11.4 kilograms of gold from former Yangon Governor Phyo Min Thein, who is believed to have testified against him under duress.

And last August, he received another six years in prison for abuse of power by allegedly renting some land below the market price and building a house with donations that should be derived to charitable works, always according to the version of the meeting.

In addition to those 20 years behind bars already confirmed, the former Minister of State is still facing a process for alleged violation of the official secrets law that is punishable by a maximum of 14 years in prison.

Suu Kyi's lawyers, who have been prohibited by the military junta from speaking to the media, and numerous foreign governments and organizations criticize that these charges are mere fabrications with which the junta intends to remove her forever from political life.

Since the coup, Burma has plunged into a deep political, social and economic crisis that is difficult to resolve and has opened a spiral of violence, with new civilian militias that have exacerbated the guerrilla war that the country has been experiencing for decades, especially in the border regions.