Malta joins condemnation of Aung San Suu Kyi sentence

Foreign Minister Tonio Borg has condemned the extended prison sentence imposed on Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Earlier this week, a court in the military-run State of Myanmar sentenced her to three years in prison, immediately reduced to 18 months on the orders of the military government which said she could serve the time in her Yangon home.

Her sentencing was a political act of intolerance intended to bar her from her legitimate political activities in view of the regime's elections planned for next year, Dr Borg said in a statement.

"The Myanmar regime cannot project itself as an international outlaw and must free its political opponents and stop political persecutions. So long as Aung San Suu Kyi and all those political opponents imprisoned in Burma remain in detention and are prevented from playing their full part in the political process, the planned elections in 2010 will have no credibility or legitimacy," he said.

Ms Suu Kyi has already spent 13 of the past 19 years under house arrest. She faced trial for allowing American intruder John Yettaw to stay at her Yangon home in May, when she was under house arrest. He had evaded security to swim across the Inya lake to the house.

The new sentence was condemned by the EU at the UN, and the EU has decided to impose more sanctions against the regime.