Suu Kyi has been charged with 12 counts in total under the anti-corruption act (Picture: AFP)
Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi has been sentenced to three more years in prison on top of the 23 years she was already sentenced to.
Myanmar’s ousted leader, 77, was found guilty of involvement in election fraud.
She was detained on February 1 last year when the military seized power from her elected government.
Her supporters and independent analysts say the charges are politically motivated and an attempt to discredit her and legitimise the military’s seizure of power.
They say the convictions are also aimed at preventing her from taking part in the next election, which the military has promised in 2023.
Corruption cases comprise the biggest share of the many charges the military has brought against the 1991 Nobel Peace laureate.
Suu Kyi has been charged with 12 counts in total under the anti-corruption act, with each count punishable by up to 15 years in prison and a fine.
She has denied the allegations against her in the latest case, in which she was accused of receiving £497,000 as a bribe from a tycoon convicted of drug trafficking.
Demonstrators hold placards with pictures of Aung San Suu Kyi as they protest against the military coup in Yangon, Myanmar, February 22, 2021 (Picture: Reuters)
She had already been convicted of illegally importing and possessing walkie-talkies, violating coronavirus restrictions, breaching the country’s official secrets act, sedition, election fraud and five corruption charges.
She has not been seen or allowed to speak in public since she was arrested.
Her lawyers have also not been allowed to speak publicly on her behalf or about her trial since a gag order was placed on them last year.
In the case decided yesterday, Suu Kyi was accused of receiving money in 2019 and 2020 from construction magnate Maung Weik, with separate payments being treated as two offences.
Under Suu Kyi’s government, Maung Weik won a major development project that included the construction of houses, restaurants, hospitals, economic zones, a port and hotel zones in Myanmar’s central Mandalay region.
He was reportedly interrogated by the army two weeks after its takeover, and shortly after that, in March 2021, military-controlled state television broadcast a video in which he claimed to have given cash pay-offs to government ministers to help his businesses.
In separate proceedings, Suu Kyi is still being tried together with the country’s former president, Win Myint, on another five corruption charges in connection with permits granted to a Cabinet minister for the rental and purchase of a helicopter.
Suu Kyi has been the face of the opposition to military rule in Myanmar for more than three decades. The previous military government put her under house arrest in 1989, which continued on-and-off for 15 of the next 22 years.
Her National League for Democracy party initially came to power after winning the 2015 general election, ushering in a true civilian government for the first time since a 1962 military coup.
However, democratic reforms were small and slow in coming, largely because the military retained substantial power and influence under the terms of a constitution it had enacted in 2008.
The National League for Democracy won a landslide victory again in the 2020 election, but its legislators were kept from taking their seats in parliament by the army, which also arrested the party’s top leaders.
The army said it acted because there had been massive voting fraud in the 2020 election, but independent election observers did not find any major irregularities.
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Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi has been sentenced to three more years in prison on top of the 23 years she was already sentenced to.
