Legal News

Suu Kyi, Burmese Pro-Democracy Leader, Found Guilty

By Ashby Jones

We suppose we shouldn’t be surprised by this, but somewhere, in a tiny little place inside us which glows with naive but unbridled optimism, we were hoping Daw Aung San Suu Kyi would catch a break during her trial.

But she didn’t. Tuesday, Suu Kyi, the Burmese pro-democracy leader, was sentenced to three years of hard labor for violating the terms of her house arrest. Her sentence, however, was reduced immediately to a new term of house arrest of up to 18 months. All this, for showing a little hospitality to an unknown American man who swam across a lake to greet her, saying he wanted to save her from potential assassins. Click here for the NYT story; here for the WaPo story, and here, here and here for previous LB coverage.

According to the NYT, Suu Kyi will presumably will be allowed to leave the prison guest house where she has been held since the trial began May 18 and return to the villa where Myanmar's ruling junta has kept her confined for 14 of the past 20 years. One possible change: we imagine she might not greet visitors as warmly as she once did.

In any event, the decision didn’t surprise many. "The outcome of this trial has never been in doubt," Jared Genser, her international counsel in Washington, said Tuesday after the verdict was announced. "The real question is how the international community will react - will it do more than simply condemn this latest injustice?"

The 18-month term will ensure that Suu Kyi will be confined during a parliamentary election due next year. Many have said the the case against her was ginned up in order to keep her from participating in the election.

Her lawyer said Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi had been "prepared for the worst" and had collected a supply of reading matter and medications to sustain her.

"From my point of view she is innocent and she should be acquitted," her lawyer told the NYT in advance of the verdict. "But this is a political case and the authorities will decide it from a political point of view," he said, adding, "I have never known of an acquittal in a political case."

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on August 11, 2009 (boomark / email).