Aung San Suu Kyi's secretive Myanmar trials end with 7 more years of jail

Aung San Suu Kyi's trials have been dismissed by the western countries as a sham designed to keep the junta's biggest threat at bay amid widespread domestic resistance to its rule.

A court in army-ruled Myanmar on Friday convicted deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi on five counts of corruption and jailed her for seven more years, an informed source said, wrapping up a marathon of trials condemned internationally as a sham.

In a closed-door court session, Ms. Suu Kyi, who was arrested during a coup in February 2021, was found guilty of offences relating to her lease and use of a helicopter while Myanmar's de facto leader, said the source, who has knowledge of her trials.

A Nobel Peace Prize winner for her decades-long campaign for democracy in Myanmar, the popular, Oxford-educated Ms. Suu Kyi has spent much of her political life in detention under military governments.

Also Read: Explained | The legal battles of Aung San Suu Kyi since the 2021 coup in Myanmar

Friday's verdict adds to sentences of at least 26 years handed down since December last year. The source, who could not be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue, said Ms. Suu Kyi was in good health.

Ms. Suu Kyi led Myanmar for five years from 2015 during a decade of tentative democracy that came after the military ended its 49-year rule, only for it to wrest back control early last year to stop her government from starting a second term, accusing it of ignoring irregularities in an election her party won.

Western countries have dismissed the trials as a sham designed to keep the junta's biggest threat at bay amid widespread domestic resistance to its rule.