A court in Myanmar’s military-ruled country on Monday sentenced former leader Aung San Suu Kyi to four years in prison on charges of possessing unlicensed walkie-talkies, according to a person familiar with the proceedings.
She faces a six-year prison sentence after two convictions last month, according to the latest sentencing in legal processes that rights groups have decried as a farce and a “courtroom circus.”
She is facing charges in more than a dozen cases, each of which carries a possible penalty of more than 100 years in jail. She refutes all allegations.
According to another source familiar with the court processes, Nobel laureate Suu Kyi, 76, appeared calm when the judgement was given out on Monday in a court in the capital, Naypyitaw.
Suu Kyi was jailed on the day of the coup, and police said six illegally imported walkie-talkies were discovered during a search of her residence a few days later.
The court sentenced her to two years in prison for violating an export-import law by holding handheld radios, as well as one year in prison for possessing a set of signal jammers. According to the source, the two sentences will run concurrently.
Myanmar has been in chaos since the coup against Suu Kyi’s democratically elected government, which sparked widespread protests and signaled the end of ten years of fragile political reforms following decades of repressive military rule.
