Myanmar court releases and deports naturalized US citizen

Mar 18, 2010, 9:36 GMT

Yangon - A Myanmar court on Thursday released naturalized US citizen Nyi Nyi Aung, who was serving a three-year jail term, and immediately deported him, police and diplomatic sources confirmed.

Nyi Nyi Aung, a former activist, was found guilty on February 10 of committing forgery, illegal possession of foreign currency and refusing to revoke his Myanmar passport and sentenced to three years imprisonment with hard labour.

Reportedly responding to a US request, Myanmar authorities took Nyi Nyi Aung to Yangon International Airport Thursday and put him on a Thai Airways International flight for Bangkok to arrive at 16:35 pm (0935 GMT), police sources said.

Nyi Nyi Aung has been blacklisted from returning to Myanmar, police said.

Nyi Nyi Aung, a former Myanmar student activist who fled to Thailand after the 1988 crackdown on the fledgling pro-democracy movement, was arrested on September 3 at Yangon International Airport.

He was initially accused of holding undeclared currency, a crime committed by most visitors entering Myanmar, where foreign currency is strictly controlled and the legal exchange rate is 6 kyat to the dollar, compared with 1,000 kyat to the dollar on the ubiquitous black market.

Authorities later added charges of holding forged documents and refusing to cancel his Myanmar passport.

Nyi Nyi Aung, who lived in Thailand from 1988 until 1994, was eventually granted refugee status by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and immigrated to the US where he became a naturalized citizen in 2005.

In the US, he was a campaigner for democracy in Myanmar, which has been under military rule since 1962.

Nyi Nyi Aung reportedly entered Myanmar four times on his US passport between 2005 and 2009, meeting with various dissident groups.

Prior to his arrest, the junta had made it known he was wanted in Myanmar for his anti-government activities.

Friends speculated that he had returned to visit his mother, a political prisoner who is suffering from thyroid cancer.

There are an estimated 2,100 political prisoners in Myanmar jails or under house arrest.