Except for the junta, that is !
Dec 7 (Reuters) – The imprisonment of former Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi showed that no one was above the law, a senior junta official said on Tuesday, and the country’s ruling general had commuted her sentence on “grounds of humanity”.
Nobel laureate Suu Kyi, 76, was sentenced to four years in prison for incitement and breaching coronavirus regulations, but that was reduced to a two-year term of detention in her current, undisclosed location.
The verdicts were the first in nearly a dozen cases against her that carry combined maximum sentences of more than 100 years in prison. Suu Kyi denies all charges.
“There is no one above the law,” Information Minister Maung Maung Ohn said on Tuesday, adding that Myanmar’s judicial system “has no partiality”.
He was speaking at a rare media briefing on Myanmar’s economy during which he and the junta’s investment minister said the situation was stabilising.
They said preparations were under way for elections to be held before August 2023, but would not confirm whether Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party would be allowed to compete.
The party is under investigation by the election commission, which Maung Maung Ohn said was due to report back early next year.
Myanmar’s state media last month announced Suu Kyi would be prosecuted for fraud over the 2020 elections, which were won convincingly by the NLD.
Myanmar has been in crisis since the military seized power in a Feb. 1 coup, arresting Suu Kyi and most of her government.
Security forces seeking to crush opposition have since killed more than 1,300 people, according to monitoring group the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, and armed rebellions have sprung up across the country.
Read more at https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/no-one-above-law-myanmar-junta-minister-says-suu-kyi-verdict-2021-12-07/
