Kriti Agrawal
After weeks of delays, Judge ordered Myanmar’s deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi to appear in Court for the first time on May 24, the lawyer said.
The Nobel laureate has not been seen publicly since she was arrested in a February 1 coup in which the military deposed her and re-installed its rule.
She was then charged with a number of offenses, and her legal team has had a difficult time obtaining a private meeting with their client.
During several Court hearings in the capital Naypyidaw, Suu Kyi, who attended via video conferencing from house arrest, expressed annoyance with the speed of the proceedings.
During the most recent hearing on Monday, the Judge requested that her cases be heard in a special courtroom near her home with her present.
“She will appear in person in Court on May 24,” Khin Maung Zaw, her lawyer, told to AFP.
Since her conviction, the 75-year-old former chief has been convicted six times.
The charges include violating coronavirus prohibitions during the election campaign last year and using unlicensed walkie-talkies.
The most serious allegation charges that she violated the country’s colonial-era Official Secrets Act, and the case is currently pending in a Court in Yangon’s commercial centre.
The junta repeatedly justified her arrest and the coup as a means of defending democracy, claiming electoral fraud by her National League for Democracy Party, which won a landslide victory in November’s elections.
The army’s commander-in-chief, coup-maker Min Aung Hlaing, now leads the junta and wields legislative, executive, and judicial authority in Myanmar.
Since the coup, hundreds of thousands of people have defied junta rule to demand a return to democracy and the release of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Security forces have confronted them with live fire, and at least 780 civilians have been killed in violent crackdowns, according to a local monitoring group.