Former Democratic Leader of Myanmar Suu Kyi Convicted on Bribery Charges
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Myanmar’s military junta sentenced the country’s former democratic leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, to five years in prison on April 27.
The government accused Suu Kyi of accepting bribes, amounting to $600,000 and 402 oz of gold, from her one-time protégé – former Yangon Chief Minister Phyo Min Thein – for favors while she was State Councillor of Myanmar, the country’s de facto head of government. She served in the role for seven years following the country’s 2015 election before being overthrown in a coup d’état last year.
Suu Kyi’s trial was held in secret in the capital, Nay Pyi Taw, and was closed to all spectators. News of the conviction and sentencing was leaked by a legal official who was not authorized to speak to the press. Her lawyers were also barred from speaking to the media, the New York Times reported. Suu Kyi, herself, is being held at an undisclosed location in the country.
Most legal experts and foreign governments consider her detention a sham to delegitimize her and justify the military’s re-seizure of power, following Myanmar’s partial democratization in 2015. It’s also seen as a way to keep Suu Kyi, 76, from rallying support around the country. Since being overthrown, she has been sentenced to six years’ imprisonment already.
She is also facing ten more corruption charges under the country’s Anti-Corruption Act. If convicted of those charges, and with sentences served consecutively, she could face 190 years in prison. Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, has said that “The days of Aung San Suu Kyi as a free woman are effectively over.”
Suu Kyi has been a controversial figure both in Myanmar and internationally. The daughter of Myanmar’s founding father, Aung San, she became the leader of the country’s pro-democracy movement in 1988 after founding the National League for Democracy party. Suu Kyi was then arrested and spent 15 years in-and-out of house arrest. She won country’s 1990 general election, the first in over 30 years, which was annulled by the military. Her campaign against the annulment earned her the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.
Twenty-five years later, in 2015, she won a second general election permitted by the military and became Myanmar’s leader. Because the constitution barred her from the presidency for having British citizen children, she assumed the role of State Councillor to exercise power.
However, Suu Kyi has been widely criticized 2017 for her perceived failure to address the genocide of Rohingya-ethnic Muslims in Myanmar’s Rakhine state by the country’s military. That year, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, then U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, called the situation a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”
Supporters of Suu Kyi argued that openly opposing the military’s actions would risk another coup d’état and undermine the country’s fragile democracy. Nevertheless, Suu Kyi was stripped of several human rights awards across the world she had received since 1988.
However, she continues to enjoy support in Myanmar, and won the 2020 general election, before the military refused to allow parliament to sit. Since her overthrow, the country has witnessed large-scale protests opposing the military and in her support.
