Myanmar’s Supreme Court has begun hearing the junta’s case against former premier and military intelligence boss Khin Nyunt, who was sacked in October and accused of corruption, legal sources said this week.
”His legal proceedings in the Supreme Court have started,” one lawyer following the case said on condition of anonymity on Tuesday.
Supreme Court officials declined to comment.
The court heard the charges against the once-powerful general in a secret hearing on Monday, but the sources could not detail the crimes laid against him or say if he had been allowed a lawyer to defend his case.
Khin Nyunt, who announced military-ruled Myanmar’s ”roadmap to
democracy” in 2003, had been expected to face charges including high treason, abuse of power and graft.
He was seen as favouring limited dialogue with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. He was replaced by junta hardliner General Soe Win.
Opening the case at the Supreme Court was an unusual step, possibly taken because of Khin Nyunt’s status as a former prime minister, legal experts said.
About 300 people linked to the former premier, including two of his sons, are standing trial at secret tribunals created inside Insein prison.
About 40 of them have already been tried and convicted, mainly for economic crimes.
The junta arrested hundreds of people during the October purge, which was
described as a crackdown on corruption that toppled Khin Nyunt and
resulted in the dismantling of his powerful military intelligence network.
Khin Nyunt had been held under house arrest since he was sacked, but a source close to the junta said on Saturday that the former premier had been taken from his home to Insein prison in preparation for his trial.
Military leaders declined to comment on the case at a press conference on Sunday, saying only that his trial had not then begun.
Legal experts said the junta could hold Khin Nyunt at a third location, neither his home nor Insein, during his trial.
In October authorities scrapped the National Intelligence Bureau, the body that gave widespread powers to military intelligence officers.
The military has ruled the country since 1962. Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won elections in 1990 but was never allowed to take power.
For nearly 10 years now, Suu Kyi, who will be 60 next Sunday, has lived under house arrest. The closest you can get to her is a road block manned by soldiers at the end of her street.
But perhaps even more scandalous is how little fuss is made by the G7, the European Union and the United Nations about Myanmar’s further slide into a vicious, sweatshop nightmare.
France, whose main oil company Total has extensive interests in the country, has opposed moves to tighten lightweight European economic sanctions. The world’s biggest banks have acted to help the junta circumvent United States laws stopping it trading in dollars by enabling the regime to open euro accounts.
British imports from Burma have surged from £17,8-million in 1997 to £74-million last year. This under a Labour government which in opposition said it would do all it could to help the pro-democracy movement.
Political tensions have escalated dramatically in Myanmar following a series of bomb blasts in Yangon on May 7 that left at least 23 people dead and 150 wounded.
Authorities blamed the attacks on an unlikely alliance of ethnic rebel groups, pro-democracy organisations and student groups, who have denied involvement. – Sapa-AFP