A Myanmar junta court on Wednesday sentenced Aung San Suu Kyi to five years in jail for corruption, part of a barrage of criminal cases that could see the deposed civilian leader jailed for decades.
Since a military coup ousted her government in February last year, plunging Myanmar into upheaval, Suu Kyi has been in military custody.
In the latest case, the Nobel laureate was accused of accepting a bribe of $600,000 cash and gold bars.
After two days of delays, the special court in the military-built capital Naypyidaw handed down its verdict and sentence at 9:30 am (0300 GMT) on Wednesday.
"Regarding taking gold and dollars from U Phyo Min Thein, the court sentenced her five years' imprisonment," junta spokesperson Zaw Min Tun told AFP.
"She will be under house arrest. I do not know whether she asked for appeal. They are working according to the legal way. As far as I know, she's in good health."
She still faces a raft of other criminal charges, including violating the official secrets act, corruption and electoral fraud, and could be jailed for more than 100 years if convicted on all counts.
The 76-year-old had already been sentenced to six years in jail for incitement against the military, breaching Covid-19 rules and breaking a telecommunications law — although she will remain under house arrest while she fights other charges.
Journalists have been barred from attending the court hearings and Suu Kyi's lawyers have been banned from speaking to the media.
Last month Suu Kyi was forced to miss three days of hearings after being quarantined because of a Covid-19 case among her staff.
Under a previous junta regime, Suu Kyi spent long spells under house arrest in her family mansion in Yangon, Myanmar's largest city.
Today, she is confined to an undisclosed location in the capital, with her link to the outside world limited to brief pre-trial meetings with her lawyers.
– Turmoil, investor flight –
The coup sparked widespread protests and unrest which the military sought to crush by force.
According to a local monitoring group, the crackdown has left more than 1,700 civilians dead and seen some 13,000 arrested.
Suu Kyi has been the face of Myanmar's democratic hopes for more than 30 years, but her earlier six-year sentence already meant she is likely to miss elections the junta has said it plans to hold by next year.
Independent Myanmar analyst David Mathieson said the junta was using the criminal cases to make Suu Kyi "politically irrelevant".
"This is just another squalid step in solidifying the coup," he told AFP.
"This is politically motivated pure and simple."
Many of her political allies have also been arrested since the coup, with one chief minister sentenced to 75 years in jail, while many others have been forced into hiding.
A tranche of ousted lawmakers from her National League for Democracy (NLD) formed a parallel "National Unity Government" (NUG) in a bid to undermine the junta's legitimacy.
However, the NUG holds no territory and has not been recognised by any foreign government.
Numerous "People's Defence Force" (PDF) civilian militias have sprung up around the country to take the fight to the junta.
Analysts say Myanmar's heavily armed, well-trained army has been surprised by the effectiveness of the PDFs and in some areas struggled to contain them.
Last week junta supremo Min Aung Hlaing called for peace talks with Myanmar's long-established ethnic rebel groups — which control large areas of territory and have been battling the military for decades.
The turmoil that has engulfed Myanmar in the wake of the coup has spooked foreign investors who flocked to the country after the dawn of democracy around 2011.
Energy giants TotalEnergies and Chevron, British American Tobacco and Japanese brewer Kirin have all announced plans to pull out.
The detention of Myanmar's Suu Kyi: What we know
Yangon (AFP) April 27, 2022 –
One of the Myanmar military's first moves during its coup last year was to arrest the country's democracy figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent decades battling military rule.
The Nobel laureate, 76, has been kept out of the public eye ever since as the junta seeks to crush resistance to its putsch.
AFP takes a look at what we know about Suu Kyi's detention.
– Where is she? –
Her exact location is unknown. The junta has kept her under house arrest at an undisclosed location in the military-built capital Naypyidaw.
She leaves only to attend hearings for her trial in a special court, which journalists are barred from attending.
Images of the trial have appeared just once, in state-media handouts last year, which showed Suu Kyi sitting behind a low barrier in a plain courtroom alongside co-defendant and ousted former president Win Myint.
– What are her conditions like? –
The junta has stayed tight-lipped about Suu Kyi's living conditions. It has said she is living with around 10 domestic staff and that she is permitted to read and watch the news from state-backed media.
The junta has rebuffed requests by foreign diplomats to meet Suu Kyi while she is on trial.
Her current isolation is a far cry from the years she spent under house arrest during the previous junta, when she lived at her family's colonial-era lakeside mansion in Yangon and regularly gave speeches to crowds on other side of her garden fence.
Suu Kyi does have her dog Taichido — gifted to her in 2010 by her UK-born youngest son as he made a rare visit to Myanmar, according to local media — for company.
– Health concerns –
The 76-year-old has skipped several trial hearings, leading to concerns over her health as she fights multiple trials.
She missed a hearing in September due to illness, and in October, her lawyer said her health had suffered from her frequent appearances before the junta-run court.
Last year, as Covid cases spiked across Myanmar, the junta announced she had been fully vaccinated, without specifying which dose she had been given.
In March she was briefly quarantined after Covid was detected among her staff and skipped several trial hearings.
– What is she on trial for? –
Suu Kyi faces a slew of corruption charges and is also on trial for breaching Myanmar's official secrets act and for electoral fraud during 2020 polls her party won in a landslide.
She has already been found guilty and sentenced for illegally importing and possessing walkie talkies, incitement against the military and flouting Covid-19 restrictions.
The junta has said she will serve her jail term under house arrest until her trials are completed.
– Is she still popular? –
While her image has been tarnished in the West over her handling of the Rohingya crisis, Suu Kyi remains hugely popular in Myanmar.
In June last year supporters across the country wore flowers in their hair — long a signature Suu Kyi look — to mark her 76th birthday.
The junta has gone after her National League for Democracy party — which trounced a military-backed party in 2020 elections — with several members jailed or in hiding.
Its election commission is currently investigating the party for alleged elctoral fraud and has threatened to suspend it.
– Will the junta free her? –
The charges against Suu Kyi — which rights groups and critics of the military say are concocted — could see her jailed for more than 150 years.
But the long charge sheet is also a way of "creating elasticity and leeway" while the junta decides what to do with Suu Kyi as it battles pro-democracy fighters, said analyst Soe Myint Aung.
After years under house arrest the military granted her freedom in 2010, just days after elections that her party boycotted but which brought a nominally civilian government to power.
It is unlikely she will be released before elections the junta has said will hold by August 2023 "unless she will serve as an antidote to the popular revolutionary drive or go along with the military-proposed roadmap," the analyst added.
