A Myanmar military court on Monday postponed delivering its first judgement in the corruption prosecution of former leader Aung San Suu Kyi, according to a junta spokesperson, who said the Nobel laureate might face a 15-year prison sentence.
76-year-old Aung San Suu Kyi has been incarcerated since the generals launched a coup and overthrew her administration in February of last year, thereby bringing the country’s short time of democracy to an end.
As a result of the investigation, she has been charged with a number of offences, including breaking the Official Secrets Act, corrupting others, and election fraud. If convicted on all counts, she may face decades in prison.
There was no verdict in the corruption trial in which Suu Kyi is accused of collecting a bribe of $600,000 in cash and gold bars from the former chief minister of Yangon, according to junta spokesperson Zaw Min Tun, who spoke to AFP on the sidelines.
He did not provide any information on when a decision will be made.
Newspaper and television journalists have been prevented from covering the special court sessions in the military-built capital of Naypyidaw, and Suu Kyi’s attorneys have also been barred from speaking to the press.
Suu Kyi has already been sentenced to six years in prison for breaking Covid-19 restrictions and walkie-talkie import requirements, thereby barring her from participating in the next elections, which the junta has said it hopes to conduct by the end of next year.
While living in her family’s colonial-era palace in Yangon, Suu Kyi was subjected to extended periods of house imprisonment during a previous military dictatorship.
According to a local monitoring organisation, more than 1,700 people have been murdered and more than 10,000 others have been detained in a crackdown on dissent since the coup.
