YANGON (Reuters): The legal team of Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi plans to meet the detained former leader this weekend after she was transferred to house arrest in the capital by the military-backed government, a representative said on Friday.
Nobel laureate Suu Kyi has been detained since the military ousted her civilian government in a coup in February 2021. The coup triggered a deadly civil war that has engulfed much of the impoverished Southeast Asian nation, and her whereabouts had been unclear.
"Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is currently still in Naypyidaw," a member of her legal team told Reuters, using an honorific for the veteran politician, and confirming that she had been moved to house arrest on Thursday night.
On Thursday, state media reported she would be moved to house arrest, but did not say where. State media also broadcast a photograph of Suu Kyi, seated on a wooden bench with two uniformed personnel, the first public image of her in years.
Suu Kyi's legal team planned to meet the 80-year-old on Sunday to discuss her position and bring her some supplies, such as food and medicine.
Sending supplies each Sunday was the regular practice of her legal team, the representative said, and after they were prevented from seeing Suu Kyi, the supplies were dropped off at a police station to be passed on.
"On Sunday, since Daw Aung San Suu Kyi had already been transferred to house arrest, it means that while going to deliver her provisions as usual, we would be able to meet her as a team to discuss the next steps of the process," the legal team member said.
The US State Department continued to call for Suu Kyi's immediate and unconditional release, a spokesperson said on Friday. "We urge the regime to ensure Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has proper access to medical care, given continued reports of her poor health," the spokesperson said.
A United Nations spokesperson said U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had "taken note" of Suu Kyi's transfer and "appeals for the swift and unconditional release of all those arbitrarily detained as a fundamental step towards conditions conducive to a credible political process."
After a marathon run of secret trials following the coup, Suu Kyi was sentenced to 33 years after she was convicted of charges ranging from corruption and inciting election fraud to violating state secrecy rules. Her allies maintain the charges were politically motivated and aimed at sidelining her.
The sentence was later reduced to 27 years, and then by a sixth in a Myanmar New Year amnesty on April 17 that freed her ally and co-defendant Win Myint, the former president.
On Thursday, her sentence was reduced by a further one-sixth as part of a wider amnesty of prisoners in Myanmar's jails, before the move to house arrest was announced.
Myanmar's junta chief-turned-president, Min Aung Hlaing, who led the coup, has faced persistent international pressure to release political detainees since a recent election, including from ASEAN. He is seeking to re-engage with the Southeast Asian bloc after it banned Myanmar from its summits as a result of the coup.
Suu Kyi, the daughter of the country's independence hero General Aung San, was held under house arrest for a total of 15 years under a previous junta at her family residence on Yangon's Inya Lake, where she famously gave impassioned speeches to crowds of supporters over the metal gates of the property.
(Reporting by Reuters Staff; Writing by John Mair; Editing by Kate Mayberry, Raju Gopalakrishnan and Nia Williams) -- Reuters
