Ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi goes on trial for corruption

Ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has gone on trial in a new corruption case against her, alleging she took $550,000 in bribes from a construction magnate.

She is charged with two counts under the Anti-Corruption Act of the country, with each count punishable by up to 15 years in prison and a fine.

Aung San Suu Kyi has been in prison since the army ousted her elected government in February 2021 and has not been allowed to speak in public since then. She is being tried in closed sessions, and her lawyers can't speak publicly on her behalf or about her trial because of a gag order placed on them.

She was sentenced to 11 years in prison after being convicted of illegally importing and possessing walkie-talkies, violating coronaviruses restrictions, sedition and another corruption charge.

Aung San Suu Kyi's supporters and human rights groups have said the cases against her are an attempt to discredit her and legitimise the military s seizure of power, eliminating the possibility of her taking part in a possible 2023 election.

But widespread resistance to the army's takeover has resulted in a civil war, challenging the military's ability to govern, according to UN experts. A legal official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to release information was confirmed on Monday by Aung San Suu Kyi's latest trial.

In this latest case, she is accused of receiving money from Maung Weik, a tycoon who was previously convicted of drug trafficking. State television under control of the military government last year showed a video in which Maung Weik claimed to have given cash to government ministers to help his businesses.

The legal official, who said payments Maung Weik made in 2019 and 2020 were being treated as separate counts, said Ye Htet, an official from the Anti-Corruption Commission who is a plaintiff in the case.

In February, The Global New Light of Myanmar, a state-controlled newspaper, reported that Aung San Suu Kyi, the country's de facto chief executive, received $550,000 in four instalments in 2019 -- 2020 in order to facilitate business activities of a private entrepreneur. Maung Weik gave the money from 2018 to 2020 in his statements in state media last year. He said in his video that the money included $100,000 provided to Aung San Suu Kyi in 2018 for a charitable foundation named after her mother and also gave Aung San Suu Kyi $450,000 in payments from 2019 to 2020 for purposes he did not specify.

Under Aung San Suu Kyi's government, Maung Weik won a major development project that included the construction of houses, restaurants, hospitals, economic zones, port and hotel zones in Myanmar's central Mandalay region.

Maung Weik, a chairman of a property development company, was close to some of the generals in power during a previous military-run government. He was sentenced in 2008 to 15 years for drug trafficking and released under a semi-democratic transitional government in 2014, led by former generals. After his release, he returned to doing business with former generals.

Aung San Suu Kyi was charged with 12 counts of corruption. She was convicted last week on one corruption charge and given a five-year prison sentence after she was found guilty of receiving $600,000 and seven gold bars from the former chief minister of Yangon, the country's biggest city.

Her lawyers are trying to overturn the verdict in an appeal to the supreme court on technical grounds, saying the case should not have been heard. If that is rejected, they can still make another appeal.