Verdict postponed for three Kyauktaw men charged with incitement

By Admin 28 Mar 2023

DMG Newsroom
28 March 2023, Kyauktaw

A verdict in the case against three Kyauktaw Township residents charged with incitement has been postponed, according to a lawyer involved.

A verdict for the accused, including social activist Ko Zaw Win aka Ludu Zaw Win, was scheduled for March 28, as all witnesses in the case had been questioned as of Tuesday’s hearing. But the court instead scheduled another hearing for April 5 under the pretext that the final verdict had not yet been written, the lawyer added.

“The judge did not prepare for the final verdict in the court, so the case was adjourned until April 5,” said the lawyer.

Several family members of the three men came to Tuesday’s court hearing hoping that the accused would be released.

“If I put all the hurt, loss, and exhaustion together, I would have no words to say,” said U San Hla Kyaw, the father of Ko Zaw Min Htet. “We were happy to see if the three of them would be released again. Now we have to go home unhappily. The three men have been on trial for more than nine months.”

The accused — identified as social activist Ko Zaw Win from Pyidawtha Ward; U Kyaw Than Maung, a three-wheeled motorbike taxi driver; and Ko Zaw Min Htet from Panphechaung Village in Kyauktaw Township — are allegedly linked to the Arakan Army (AA) and were charged with incitement under Section 505(a) of the Penal Code in January of this year.

Repeated trial delays have become a hallmark of the Myanmar courts system under the military regime that seized power in a February 2021 coup.

“If the judges delay the cases without delivering the verdicts, the accused suffer. I just want to say that the judges have ignored and abused the law,” said U Myat Tun, director of the Arakan Human Rights Defenders and Promoters Association.

“If the three men are in violation of the criminal law, the judge should quickly deliver a verdict,” said a social activist in Kyauktaw. “Their families are also emotionally affected. The accused are also affected mentally and emotionally. We want to see them release them completely if they are not guilty.”

Several people were arrested on suspicion of having links with the Arakan Army during a monthslong resumption of hostilities between the military and the ethnic armed group from August to late November of last year.

According to a DMG tally, the regime detained around 50 people in the latest period of fighting, charging many of them under the Unlawful Associations Act, or with incitement under Section 505 of the Penal Code.