Myanmar ex-president freed from postcoup detention, Suu Kyi’s sentence cut

AFP | Washington

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Myanmar ’s former president Win Myint, detained since a 2021 military coup, was freed yesterday under a mass amnesty which, according to a source close to pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, also reduced her sentence.

Win Myint and Suu Kyi, the 80-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate, led Myanmar during a decade-long experiment with civilian rule that was abruptly halted by the coup.

The former president, who served from 2018, was pardoned of convictions handed down during the post-putsch period of military rule and released yesterday, a spokesman for his party told AFP.

Suu Kyi meanwhile remains detained, serving a sentence rights groups decry as a politically motivated move to hobble her National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

A source close to her legal case, requesting anonymity for security reasons, told AFP that Suu Kyi’s 27-year sentence had been cut as part of the amnesty.

The order announced by Min Aung Hlaing -- the coup leader who ousted Suu Kyi’s government and was sworn in last week as civilian president -- to reduce the remaining terms of all sentences under 40 years by one-sixth “also applies to her”, the source said.

It is unclear how much of her term was considered served before the commutation order.

UN rights chief Volker Turk said that “all those detained unjustly since the coup -- including state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi -- need to be released immediately and unconditionally”.