Myanmar court sentences ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi to 4 years in prison after finding her guilty of incitement and violating coronavirus restrictions, official says.
The sentencing was the first in a series of cases in which the 76-year-old Nobel laureate is being prosecuted since the army seized power on Feb. 1, preventing her National League for Democracy party from starting a second five-year term in office.
The court’s ruling was conveyed by a legal official who insisted on anonymity for fear of being punished by the authorities. Suu Kyi’s trials are closed to the media and spectators, and her lawyers, who had been the sole source of information on the proceedings, were served with gag orders in October forbidding them from releasing information.
There were protest marches on Sunday against the military government and calling for the release of Suu Kyi and other detained members of her government. An army truck deliberately sped into a march by about 30 young people in Yangon, the country’s biggest city, and at least three of the protesters may have been killed, according to unconfirmed reports.
The former mayor of Naypyitaw, Myo Aung, was another defendant in the charge, which carries a maximum penalty of two years in prison and a fine. Win Myint was sentenced to a total of four years and Myo Aung to two years. The military took Suu Kyi into custody on the day of its takeover, and she has not been seen in public since then, though she has appeared in court in several of her trials.
A trial on a fifth corruption charge has not yet started, and state media last week announced a sixth charge has also been filed against Suu Kyi.