Myanmar cuts Aung San Suu Kyi’s sentence again in fresh amnesty

Myanmar’s detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi has received another sentence reduction under a new amnesty, marking the second commutation in two weeks, according to Reuters, citing a member of her legal team.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who has been held since she was ousted in the 2021 military coup, now has just over 18 years left to serve, the report said.

After a long series of trials, Suu Kyi, now 80, was originally sentenced to 33 years on charges including corruption, election-related offences and breaches of state secrecy laws. Her allies have consistently maintained that the cases were politically motivated and designed to remove her from public life. The sentence was later reduced to 27 years, before a further one-sixth cut in a Myanmar New Year amnesty on April 17, which also saw the release of her ally and former president Win Myint.

The latest reduction followed a state media announcement on Thursday saying that all prisoners would receive a sentence commutation.

Suu Kyi’s whereabouts remain unknown and she has not been seen in public since the trials. The authorities are still holding her at an undisclosed location, and her legal team and family have not been granted face-to-face access.

A spokesperson for the military-backed government did not immediately respond to requests for comment, Reuters said.

Myanmar’s new president, Min Aung Hlaing, who led the coup that removed Suu Kyi from power, has faced continuing international pressure to release political detainees following the recent election, including from ASEAN, which has been urging further prisoner releases as part of efforts to ease Myanmar’s prolonged political crisis.

Min Aung Hlaing told Thailand’s foreign minister last week that Suu Kyi was being “well looked after” and said his government was considering unspecified “good things”, according to Reuters.