San Francisco Frontiers - Myanmar's ex-president freed after pardon of post-coup convictions

Win Myint served as president starting in 2018, with Myanmar in the midst of a decade-long experiment with civilian rule that was abruptly halted by the coup.

While he occupied the top spot, it functioned as a ceremonial role following the lead of de facto government head Aung San Suu Kyi, who was barred from holding the presidency under a military-drafted constitution.

Suu Kyi, the octogenarian Nobel Peace Prize laureate, remains detained, serving a 27-year sentence rights groups decry as a politically motivated move to hobble her National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

"The President has pardoned Win Myint," said a statement from the office of President Min Aung Hlaing -- who ordered the coup detaining Win Myint, who was convicted of a host of crimes critics say were fabricated.

Myo Nyunt, spokesman for the NLD which was dissolved after the coup, told AFP he had visited the ex-president at his daughter's house in the capital Naypyidaw and he was "in good health".

After five years ruling as armed forces chief, Min Aung Hlaing was installed last Friday as civilian leader in a transition democracy watchdogs have described as a rebranding of military rule.

The shift has been accompanied by rollbacks of some of the junta's post-coup crackdown measures -- steps the leadership tout as reconciliation, but which critics describe as cosmetic measures to aid the rebranding effort.

Min Aung Hlaing on Friday also commuted all death sentences and ordered the release of more than 4,300 prisoners in an amnesty to mark Myanmar's new year -- one of many public holidays when mass pardons are commonly made.

But Win Myint's pardon is perhaps the most significant climb-down so far.

- 'The greatest joy' -

Outside the barbed-wire boundary of Yangon's Insein prison, AFP journalists saw detained award-winning filmmaker Shin Daewe released in Friday morning's amnesty.

She was given a life sentence in 2024 -- later commuted to 15 years -- for "complicity in terrorism", according to Reporters Without Borders, which called her initial term the "harshest" post-coup sentencing of a journalist.

"Being reunited with my family will be the greatest joy. Everyone wants to see their family every single day," said the documentary maker.

"Even though I was fortunate, my unlucky friends were left behind in tears. Even as I return to my family, I am returning with tears in my eyes."

Less than 14 percent of those released in successive rounds of amnesties since the coup were political prisoners, think tank the Institute for Strategy and Policy Myanmar said late last year.

Other gaggles of families waited in the sweltering heat, hoping their relatives were among those freed.

"My brother has been imprisoned for a political case," said 38-year-old Aung Htet Naing, who was prepared for disappointment.

"We cannot expect much because he wasn't included in previous pardons."

More than 30,000 people have been detained for political reasons since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

Under military rule, the junta resumed executions which had not taken place for decades, targeting dissidents opposed to the 2021 coup, rights groups said.

By the following year, more than 130 people had been sentenced to death, according to the United Nations.

Friday's order by Min Aung Hlaing commuted those sentenced to death to serve life in prison instead.

Min Aung Hlaing swept aside the elected government of Win Myint and Suu Kyi five years ago, making allegations it had taken power by means of massive voter fraud in polls the previous year.

Election monitors said there was no evidence of that and the military -- which has ruled Myanmar for most of its history -- wrestled back power as it grew anxious about its waning influence after her landslide victory.

The coup triggered an ongoing civil war, pitching pro-democracy guerrillas and long-active ethnic minority armies against the military.

A junta-organised election concluded in January, reversing the result of the 2020 poll by delivering a walkover win for pro-military parties.

Suu Kyi's NLD was dissolved and barred from running, while protest or criticism of the poll was made a prisonable offence and voting did not take place in rebel-held areas.

Lawmakers installed in the election voted overwhelmingly for Min Aung Hlaing to serve as their president, and he was sworn into office to start his five-year term last week.

V.Perez--SFF