HLA HLA HTAY, Rangoon, August 12, 2009
BURMA’S democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been ordered to stay under house arrest for 18 months after a prison court convicted the Nobel laureate at the end of her internationally condemned trial. The court at Rangoon’s Insein prison yesterday sentenced her to three years’ imprisonment with hard labour for breaching terms of her house arrest after an incident in which a US man swam to her lakeside residence in May. However, the head of the ruling junta signed a special order commuting the sentence and allowing the frail 64-year-old to serve out just a year and a half under house arrest, Home Affairs Minister General Maung Oo said outside the court. The ruling means that Ms Suu Kyi will be in detention during multi-party elections promised by the iron-fisted military regime next year. Her party won a landslide victory in the country’s last democratic polls. Read more here
