Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi granted clemency: Reports

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

Former leader receives a pardon in five of the 19 cases against her and will remain under house arrest, media reports say.

Myanmar’s military has granted clemency to Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, pardoning her for five of the numerous offences for which she was jailed for a total of 33 years, according to media reports.

The clemency, announced on Tuesday, was part of an amnesty granted to more than 7,000 prisoners to mark Buddhist Lent.

The former leader, who was reportedly moved from prison to house arrest in the capital, Naypyitaw, last week, has been in detention since the military toppled her government and seized power in a coup in early 2021.

She is appealing the convictions for the various offences ranging from incitement and election fraud to corruption.

She denied all of the charges.

An informed source told the Reuters news agency that despite the pardons, Aung San Suu Kyi would remain in detention.

“She won’t be free from house arrest,” said the source who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue.

AFP meanwhile said the 78-year-old former leader still faces 14 other cases.

“She couldn’t be freed completely although some sentences against her were pardoned. She still has to face 14 cases. Only five cases out of 19 were pardoned,” a legal source was quoted as saying.

Former President Win Myint also had his sentences reduced as part of the clement, according to The Associated Press.

Aung San Suu Kyi, 78, the daughter of Myanmar’s independence hero, was first put under house arrest in 1989 after huge protests against decades of military rule.

In 1991, she won the Nobel Peace Prize for campaigning for democracy but was only fully released from house arrest in 2010. She swept a 2015 election, held as part of tentative military reforms that were brought to a halt by the 2021 coup