Suu Kyi hit with five new charges

The Nobel laureate, 76, has been detained since the Feb 1 coup last year which triggered mass protests and a bloody crackdown on dissent with more than 1,400 civilians killed, according to a local monitoring group.

Suu Kyi is facing a raft of criminal and corruption charges – including violating the country’s official secrets laws – and if convicted of all of them could face sentences tallying more than 100 years of prison.

The charges were levelled against Suu Kyi on Friday afternoon (Jan 14) and related to the hire, maintenance and purchase of a helicopter, the sources said.

Former Myanmar president U Win Myint was also hit with the same charges, they said.

In December, state newspaper Global New Light of Myanmar said the pair would be prosecuted for not following financial regulations and causing a loss to the state over the rent and purchase of a helicopter for former government minister Win Myat Aye.

He rented the helicopter from 2019 to 2021 and used it for only 84.95 hours out of 720 rental hours, the paper said.

He is now in hiding, along with other former lawmakers.

A Myanmar court last Monday convicted Suu Kyi of three criminal charges related to illegally importing and owning walkie talkies and breaking COVID-19 rules.

She was sentenced to four years in prison.

In December, she also received a two-year jail sentence for incitement against the military and for other coronavirus violations.

The six years of jail time will likely prevent Suu Kyi from participating in fresh elections that the military junta has vowed to hold by August 2023.

Suu Kyi is expected to remain under house arrest as the other legal cases progress.

Journalists have been barred from attending the special court hearings in Naypyidaw and her lawyers were recently banned from speaking to the media.

The daughter of an independence hero, Suu Kyi spent nearly two decades enduring long stretches of house arrest under the former military regime.

Her time in office was marred by her government’s handling of the Rohingya refugee crisis in which hundreds of thousands escaped to Bangladesh in 2017 as they faced rapes, arson and extrajudicial killings at the hands of the Myanmar military.

Before the coup, Suu Kyi was on the cusp of beginning another five-year term as the country’s de facto leader after the National League for Democracy won a landslide in November 2020 polls.

Philippines says Suu Kyi ‘indispensable’ to democracy

Meanwhile, Aung San Suu Kyi was “indispensable” to restoring democracy to the country, the Philippines foreign minister said yesterday, echoing condemnation of her recent sentencing by the junta court.

While several Western countries, including the United States and Norway, have slammed the latest sentencing, Southeast Asian leaders have been largely silent.

Philippines Foreign Minister Teodoro Locsin broke ranks yesterday, tweeting he had adopted “as my own” a statement by his Norwegian counterpart Anniken Huitfeldt that condemned the sentencing.

“Suu Kyi is indispensable in a democratic restoration that will pose no threat of anarchy, dissolution, and civil conflict,” Locsin said, adding Myanmar’s armed forces “have nothing to fear”.

Locsin also backed the recent visit to Myanmar by Cambodia’s strongman ruler Hun Sen – the first by a foreign leader since the coup – highlighting regional tensions over how to deal with the crisis-hit nation.

Critics said the visit by Hun Sen, whose country holds the rotating chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), risked legitimising the junta and undermining efforts to isolate the generals.

But Locsin said Hun Sen achieved “headways” and “deserves wholehearted support”.

ASEAN has sought to help Myanmar, agreeing to a “five-point consensus” last year aimed at defusing the crisis, but the generals have shown little sign of changing course.

More than 1,400 civilians have been killed as the military cracks down on dissent, according to a local monitoring group.

In October, the bloc took the highly unusual step of excluding junta chief Min Aung Hlaing from a summit in response to an ASEAN envoy being denied a meeting with Suu Kyi.

But Hun Sen met the military leader during his visit, and has insisted the trip could have a positive impact.