Myanmar rolls out mass prison sentence cut, trimming ex-leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s detention

YANGON – Myanmar’s coup chief-turned-president cut all prisoners’ sentences by one-sixth on April 30, a blanket measure a source close to deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi said would further shorten her detention.

A statement from Mr Min Aung Hlaing’s presidential office marking a public holiday on April 30 said prisoners will “have their remaining sentences cut by one-sixth”.

It did not mention any prisoners by name, but a National League for Democracy (NLD) source said 80-year-old Aung San Suu Kyi “will also get one-sixth reduction of her remaining sentences”.

This comes after Reuters, citing Ms Aung San Suu Kyi’s lawyer, reported earlier in April that her sentence would be cut by a sixth, as part of an amnesty by Mr Min Aung Hlaing.

Ms Aung San Suu Kyi has been sequestered since a 2021 military coup, but the senior member of her dissolved NLD party said that while her term had been reduced, her remaining sentence is still unclear.

“We also don’t know exactly how many years she has left,” the source told AFP news agency, speaking on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.

The military toppled Ms Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government five years ago, sweeping her into detention on a host of charges rights groups say were confected to sideline her and triggering civil war.

Since then, Myanmar has been led by Mr Min Aung Hlaing, who was the country’s military chief before he was sworn in as civilian president in April after a tightly restricted election excluding the NLD.

Democracy monitors described the process as a rebranding of military rule, and have likewise dismissed rollbacks of some post-coup curbs as lip-service measures designed to reform the image of the government.

It remains unclear how much of Ms Aung San Suu Kyi’s sentence handed down inside Myanmar’s opaque court system is by now considered served, and therefore by how much her term will be trimmed.

She was initially convicted in closed-court trials and handed a sentence of more than three decades on charges ranging from corruption to breaching Covid-19 regulations.

A 2023 pardon of some crimes saw the Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s sentence reduced to 27 years.

In one of his first acts as civilian president, Mr Min Aung Hlaing in April issued another public holiday blanket order nearly identical to that of April 30, trimming more time off Ms Aung San Suu Kyi’s sentence.

He also pardoned her top aide Win Myint who served as her ceremonial president, prompting speculation her detention may be significantly relaxed next.

Ms Aung San Suu Kyi remains massively popular inside Myanmar, but has been held almost completely incommunicado as her family warn of her ailing health. AFP