Myanmar court sentences Suu Kyi to six years in prison

A Myanmar court has sentenced deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi to six years in prison.

The court found the 77-year-old Nobel laureate and figurehead of Myanmar’s opposition to military rule guilty of four corruption charges.

Suu Kyi was found guilty of misusing funds from the Daw Khin Kyi Foundation – an organization she founded promoting health and education – to build a home, and leasing government-owned land at a discounted rate.

She was charged with at least 18 offenses ranging from graft to election violations which carry a combined maximum jail term of nearly 190 years.

Suu Kyi, who is being held in solitary confinement in a jail in the capital Naypyitaw, had already been sentenced to 11 years in prison in other cases.

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She has dismissed the accusations absurd and denied all charges against her.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since last year when the military overthrew an elected government led by Suu Kyi’s party and led a deadly crackdown on dissent.

Tens of thousands of people have been jailed and many tortured, beaten, or killed, in what the United Nations has called crimes against humanity.

The international community has imposed sanctions on the military and dismissed Suu Kyi’s secretive trials as farcical.

“It’s a massive assault against her rights, and part of the campaign to bury her and the NLD forever,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia Director at Human Rights Watch.

.Suu Kyi, daughter of the leader of Myanmar’s campaign for independence from British colonial led the country for five years during a brief period of tentative reforms before being forced from power in the February 2021 coup.

The military has ruled for five of the past six decades.

Zainab Sa’id