Myanmar court imprisoned Aung San Suu Kyi for seven years as secretive trials ended

On Friday, a court in military-ruled Myanmar arrested deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi on the count of corruption and prisoned her for a combined seven consecutive years, a source familiar with her trial said, wrapping up the previous remaining cases against her.

In a court area held behind closed doors, Suu Kyi, arrested during a coup in February of the previous year, was found guilty of offences related to her lease and use of a helicopter while she stayed Myanmar’s de facto leader, the source stated.

A Nobel Peace winner for her decades-long campaign for democracy in Myanmar, Suu Kyi is spending much of her political party in detention under military administration.

Friday’s verdict adds to sentences of nearly 26 years handed down since December of the previous year. The judge gave an order she serves seven more years in jail. The five charges each carried the highest penalty of 15 years.

Western countries have refused the trials as a sham to keep the junta’s biggest enemy at bay between widespread resistance to its rule.

Suu Kyi led Myanmar for many years from 2015 in a decade of tentative democracy after the military, which ends its 49-year rule, only for it to wrest back control early the previous year to stop Suu Kyi’s government from beginning a second term.

She has been convicted of a range of offences in the previous 13 months, all of which she has stated as absurd.

The offences include breaking COVID-19 restrictions while campaigning that owns radio equipment, incitement breaching a state secrets law which tries to influence the country’s election commission.

The junta has stated the charges are legitimate and that Suu Kyi, who has been held in the annexe of a prison in the capital Naypyitaw, has been given the process by an independent court.

The military is removing Suu Kyi’s government from power because it failed to address alleged irregularities in the election that her party won in a landslide.