Three Burmese democracy supporters, all related to opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, were each sentenced to 10 years in prison, the Burmese government announced yesterday. Ms Suu Kyi's cousin and close aide, Mr Cho Aung Than, his sister Ms Nge Ma Ma Than, and her husband, Mr Myint Swe, had been found guilty and sentenced under national security laws in Insein court in Rangoon, according to an official statement.
Several other close aides and family members of Ms Suu Kyi's have been arrested and sentenced to long jail terms during the past 18 months.
"Cho Aung Than, Myint Swe and Nge Ma Ma Than have been sentenced for three years' imprisonment for breaching the Unlawful Associations Act and a further seven years under the Emergency Provisions Act," the statement said. It gave no further details.
The three were detained in June and questioned in relation to smuggling videotapes of Ms Suu Kyi's speeches abroad.
They have also been accused of being conduits for foreign funds which the government said were received by Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) earlier this year, officials said.
In June Burma's military government, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), said the NLD had received $82,200 (£54,800) from two Americans working for US agencies.
In an interview last month Ms Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Laureate, strongly denied receiving the money. NLD vice-chairman U Kyi Muang said in June that the party had occasionally been offered money by foreign organisations but never accepted as a matter of principle.
The SLORC has accused exiled pro-democracy groups of masterminding bomb attacks in Rangoon over the last few months. One such attack killed the eldest daughter of army Chief-of-Staff Tin Oo.
The NLD won a landslide election victory in 1990 but the SLORC refused to recognise the result. Since Ms Suu Kyi was released from six years' house arrest in July 1995 the SLORC has detained and released several thousand NLD politicians and supporters. - (Reuter)