Sean Turnell: Suu Kyi’s Australian advisor is sentenced to three years in prison

• Military officials have sentenced a former adviser to Myanmar’s deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi to three years in prison.
• In February 2021, just days after Aung San Suu Kyi was taken into custody and her elected government was overthrown in a coup, Sean Turnell was jailed in Yangon.
• He was accused of violating the Official Secrets Act together with Ms. Suu Kyi, which they both vehemently denied.

Military officials have sentenced a former adviser to Myanmar’s deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi, an Australian academic, to three years in prison.

In February 2021, just days after Aung San Suu Kyi was taken into custody and her elected government was overthrown in a coup, Sean Turnell was jailed in Yangon.

He was accused of violating the Official Secrets Act together with Ms. Suu Kyi, which they both vehemently denied.

In trials that rights organizations criticized, they received sentences on Thursday.

Australia also declared that it disagreed with the court’s decision, pointing out that one of its citizens had been tried in a junta-run closed court.

According to Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong, “The Australian Government has consistently denied the claims against Professor Turnell for the more than 19 months he had been wrongfully incarcerated by the Myanmar military administration.”

We’ll keep seizing every chance to speak out passionately in favor of Professor Turnell until he’s back with his family in Australia.

In addition, Ms. Suu Kyi received a third three-year prison term in connection with the secrecy accusations. On more than a dozen allegations brought by the military administration, she has already been given a term of more than two decades in prison; there are still a number more cases pending.

She may spend nearly 200 years behind bars if found guilty of all charges.

The specifics of the purported offenses Mr. Turnell committed are not well known. He vehemently denied violating the state secrets statute, which carries a potential 14-year prison sentence, at his trial in August.

The Australian economist gained notoriety in Myanmar’s public life after relocating there in 2017 to assist Aung San Suu Kyi’s administration with economic reform.

When he was taken into custody in his hotel room in Yangon, he was discussing the military takeover with the news channel.

“I’m currently simply being detained, and I could be charged with something. I have no idea what that could be “He revealed this to the radio show.

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