AFP/File – Myanmar soldiers during a parade. A court in Myanmar has sentenced two officials to death for leaking … Fri Jan 8, 6:15 am ET
YANGON (AFP) – A court in Myanmar has sentenced two officials to death for leaking confidential information, sources said Friday, in a case reportedly involving secret trips by junta leaders to North Korea and Russia.
The men were arrested last year after details and photos were passed to exiled media about the visits by senior regime officials and about military tunnels built in Myanmar by nuclear-armed North Korea, reports said.
A third man was jailed for 15 years, official sources said.
"Two officials got the death sentence and another one was jailed for 15 years for leaking information. They were sentenced at the special court in Insein Prison on Thursday," an official source said on condition of anonymity.
The two condemned men were retired army major Win Naing Kyaw and foreign ministry official Thura Kyaw, while the jailed man was Pyan Sein, also a foreign ministry employee, the sources said.
Myanmar, formerly known as Burma and ruled by the army since 1962, has the death penalty but sentences are almost always commuted to life imprisonment.
Details about possible links between North Korea and military-ruled Myanmar prompted the United States to express concerns about regional security, even as Washington pursued a new policy of engagement with the junta.
Thursday's sentences were passed under the state emergency act for leaking military secrets, the website of Thailand-based Irrawaddy magazine said, citing sources at the notorious jail in Yangon where hundreds of dissidents are held.
It said Win Naing Kyaw also received a 20-year sentence for violation of the Electronic Act and holding illegal foreign currency. The act prohibits sending information, photos or video damaging to the regime abroad via the Internet.
The leaks by the three men included details of a 2008 trip to communist North Korea by junta number three General Shwe Mann, who is also the joint chief of staff of Myanmar's armed forces, exile-run media said.
Shwe Mann's visit involved procuring arms and discussing tunnel-building and other matters, Irrawaddy reported.
The men were also accused of leaking pictures of the alleged secret network of tunnels built by North Korean experts inside Myanmar, which were published in June by the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), based in Oslo, Norway.
The documents the men released further showed that junta number two Maung Aye visited Russia in 2006 to discuss the procurement of a guided missile system with Moscow officials, the DVB said on its website Friday.
The Myanmar government has not commented on the allegations.
The death sentences imposed Thursday were part of a wave of harsh punishments handed down by Myanmar's courts as the regime cracks down on dissent ahead of elections promised by the generals some time in 2010.
Dozens of other officials in the defence and foreign ministries were arrested after the leaks but the status of their cases is not known, Irrawaddy said.
A video journalist who had worked with the DVB was last week jailed for 20 years for violating the electronics act, rights groups said Wednesday, although they did not mention any link with the Myanmar-North Korea case.
Myanmar severed ties with Pyongyang in 1983 following a failed assassination attempt by North Korean agents on then-South Korean president Chun Doo-Hwan as he visited the Southeast Asian nation. The attempt left 21 people dead.
But with both countries branded "outposts of tyranny" by the United States in recent years they later sought to rebuild relations.
During a visit to Thailand in July, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said North Korea could be sharing atomic technology with Myanmar, posing a major threat to the region.
But the Obama administration has recently sought engagement with the junta, despite its continued detention of pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi and alleged rights abuses.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100108/wl_asia_afp/myanmarjusticepoliticsnkorea
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