Myanmar court sentences Aung San Suu Kyi to another three years for ‘election fraud’

Aung San Suu Kyi has now been sentenced to 20 years in prison on 11 counts

Deposed Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced on Friday by a court to three years imprisonment over her role in “election fraud”.

This adds more jail time to the 17 years she is already serving for various offences.

Last month, a court in military-ruled Myanmar convicted Ms Suu Kyi, 77, on more charges, adding six years to an earlier 11-year prison sentence.

The trial is being held behind closed doors, with no access to media or the public and her lawyers are forbidden by a gag order from revealing information about the proceedings.

Ms Suu Kyi’s party won a landslide victory in the 2020 general election but three months later, in February 2021, the military seized control and ousted the democratically elected government.

Two senior members of Ms Suu Kyi’s former government who were co-defendants in the case also received three-year prison sentences, a legal official said on Friday.

Last month, when she was awarded six more years in jail, the EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell condemned the sentencing and called for her release.

“I condemn the unjust sentence of Aung San Suu Kyi to an additional six years of detention,” he tweeted and called on the Myanmar junta to “immediately and unconditionally release her”.

Zin Mar Aung, the foreign minister for Myanmar’s National Unity Government set up by politicians ousted in the February 2021 army coup, said the decision was “yet another act of the junta’s desperate attempts to discredit those democratically elected”.

He called for Aung San Suu Kyi’s release and urged the junta to release “all political prisoners, and respect the will of the people”.

Ms Suu Kyi has denied all the allegations against her and the UN has also dubbed proceedings against her a “sham trial”.