Aung San Suu Kyi prison sentence in Myanmar has been increased to 26 years

• Aung San Suu Kyi sentenced to three additional years in jail for corruption.
• Convicted of receiving $500,000 in bribes from a local tycoon, source says.
• Latest in a string of punishments meted out against former leader since 2021 coup.

According to a source familiar with the case, a court in military-run Myanmar sentenced Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s deposed former leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner, to three more years in prison for corruption, bringing her total prison term to 26 years.

The verdict issued on Wednesday is the latest in a series of punishments meted out to the 77-year-old, a figurehead of opposition to decades of military rule who led Myanmar for five years before being deposed in a coup in early 2021.

According to the source, Suu Kyi was found guilty of accepting $500,000 in bribes from a local tycoon, a charge she denied. Her attorneys have stated that the series of crimes charged against her are politically motivated.

Suu Kyi is currently being held in solitary confinement in the capital’s Naypyidaw prison.

Suu Kyi was found guilty of electoral fraud and sentenced to three years in prison with hard labour last month in a trial relating to the November 2020 general election, which her National League for Democracy won by a landslide, defeating a military-backed party.

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Suu Kyi was sentenced to hard labour for the first time since the military coup of 2021. She received the same sentence in a separate trial in 2009 under a previous administration, but her sentence was commuted.

Suu Kyi has previously been convicted of crimes ranging from bribery to election violations.

Since the military took power, rights groups have repeatedly expressed concern about the treatment of pro-democracy activists in the country.

According to a Japanese diplomat, a military court in Myanmar sentenced a Japanese journalist to ten years in prison last week for sedition and violating a law on electronic communications after he filmed an anti-government protest in July.

Change.org petition says, Toru Kubota, 26, was arrested by plainclothes police in Yangon while filming a documentary he had been working on for several years.

Following a trial condemned by the UN and rights groups, the military junta executed two prominent pro-democracy activists and two other men accused of terrorism in July.

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