Myanmar Court Sentences Aung San Suu Kyi To Three Years Prison For Election Fraud

File Picture

A court in Myanmar sentenced ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi to three years’ imprisonment with labour after finding her guilty of election fraud, adding more jail time to the 17 years she is already serving for other offenses prosecuted by the military government.

As per PTI, The latest verdict also carries potentially significant political consequences for Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party by lending support to the government’s explicit threats to dissolve it before a new election the military has promised for 2023.

Suu Kyi’s party won the the 2020 general election in a landslide victory, but the army seized power the following February and kept her from a second five-year term in office.

The army contends it acted because of alleged widespread fraud in the polls though independent election observers did not find any major irregularities.

Some critics of Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who led the takeover and is now Myanmar’s top leader, believe he acted because the vote thwarted his own political ambitions.

The military’s seizure prompted widespread peaceful protests that were quashed with lethal force, triggering armed resistance that some UN experts now characterise as civil war.

Suu Kyi had already been sentenced to 17 years in prison on charges of illegally importing and possessing walkie-talkies, violating coronavirus restrictions, sedition and five counts of corruption.

Many top members of her party and government also have been jailed, while others are in hiding or have fled abroad.