World

Suu Kyi jailed five years for corruption

By AAP Newswire

Apr 27, 2022

Ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi — A Myanmar court has found ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi guilty of corruption. -AP

A court in military-ruled Myanmar has found deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi guilty of corruption and sentenced her to five years in jail, according to a source with knowledge of the proceedings.

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The case was the first of 11 corruption charges against the Nobel laureate, each carrying a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.Â

The source declined to be identified because her trials are being held behind closed doors.

Suu Kyi, was ousted by an army takeover in February last year, has denied the allegation that she had accepted gold and hundreds of thousands of dollars given her as a bribe by a top political colleague.

Her supporters and independent legal experts have decried her prosecution as unjust and meant to keep the 76-year-old from returning to an active role in politics.

She has already been sentenced to six years' imprisonment in other cases.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party won a landslide victory in the 2020 general election, but lawmakers were not allowed to take their seats when the army seized power on February 1, 2021, arresting Suu Kyi and many senior colleagues in her party and government.

The army claimed it acted because there had been massive electoral fraud, but independent election observers did not find any major irregularities.