Deposed Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi's Sentence Extended To 26 Years
Aung San Suu Kyi, the deposed leader of Myanmar and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has been given an additional three years in prison for corruption, bringing her total sentence to 26 years.
The sentence handed out on Wednesday is the most recent in a long line of punishments meted out to the 77-year-old leader of Myanmar for five years before she was ousted in a coup in early 2021.
Sources say that Suu Kyi was found guilty of taking $500,000 in bribes from a local tycoon. Her attorneys have claimed that the string of accusations against her is intended to further a political agenda.
Naypyidaw, the capital of Myanmar, is home to the prison where Suu Kyi is imprisoned.
In a trial relating to the general election held in November 2020, in which Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy handily won against a party formed by the military, a court ruled this month that Suu Kyi committed electoral fraud and sentenced her to three years in prison with hard labour.
Since the military coup of 2021, this was Suu Kyi's first sentence of hard labour. In a different trial in 2009, under the previous administration, she received the same punishment, but it was commuted.
Suu Kyi has a history of convictions for bribery and election fraud. Since the military took over, human rights organisations have voiced repeated concerns about the treatment of pro-democracy activists in the country.
During a press conference at the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo, a portrait photo of Japanese documentary director Toru Kubota was exhibited.
Toru Kubota, a 26-year-old Japanese journalist, was also sentenced on Wednesday, this time to an additional three years in prison for violating immigration law, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, which CNN reported.
Kubota was already serving a 10-year term for sedition and breaking a ban on internet communications when this sentence was handed down last week. A Japanese diplomat has stated that the charges stem from his filming of a protest against the administration in July.
A Japanese government ministry has stated that Japan will keep pressing Myanmar for Kubota's release "at the earliest possible date."
According to a Change.org petition, Kubota was arrested by plainclothes police in Yangon while recording a documentary he had been working on for several years.
After a widely panned trial by the UN and rights groups, the military junta murdered four men in July. Two of the victims were prominent pro-democracy campaigners who had been charged with terrorism.