Myanmar Supreme Court to hear Suu Kyi appeal this week - source
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[July 03, 2023]
(Reuters) - The Supreme Court in military-ruled Myanmar will hear
an appeal this week by former leader Aung San Suu Kyi against two of her
convictions, a source familiar with the case said on Monday, as the
Nobel laureate seeks to reduce her 33 years of jail time. |
Myanmar's State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi
arrives at a school in Kawhmu, Yangon, Myanmar, July 18, 2019.
REUTERS/Ann Wang/File Photo |
The
78-year-old has been convicted of a litany of offences from
incitement and election fraud to multiple counts of corruption
since the military arrested her during a February 2021 coup
against her elected government.
Suu Kyi's allies and Western governments have condemned her
incarceration as a junta play to prevent any comeback by the
popular figurehead of Myanmar's decades-long struggle for
democracy.
The Supreme Court has announced it will hear appeals on
Wednesday against Suu Kyi's conviction for a breach of the
official secrets act and for electoral fraud. The source, who
declined to be identified because of sensitivities over her
cases, said a decision could take two months.
A spokesperson for the junta could not immediately be reached
for confirmation.
The military insists defendants are afforded due process by an
independent judiciary, countering criticism from human rights
groups over the jailing of multiple members of the pro-democracy
movement in secret trials, and the resumption of executions
after a decades-long hiatus.
Myanmar has been locked in conflict since the military seized
power on the grounds of unaddressed irregularities in a November
2020 election that Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD)
party swept in a landslide.
The NLD denied fraud and has since been dissolved along with 39
other parties for failure to register for an election for which
the generals have yet to set a date.
Activists have urged the junta not to hold the election, warning
it could see an intensification of bloody violence between the
military and a pro-democracy resistance movement.
(Reporting by Reuters Staff; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by
Kanupriya Kapoor)
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