22nd July 2015
The judges presiding over the trials have also repeatedly blocked the defense’s attempts to introduce witness testimony that both
men were working as day laborers or were at the IDP camp at the specific times that they were alleged by prosecutors to be receiving
explosives training and engaging in other illegal activities.
After a series of hearings that were later criticized by a UN panel for being heavily biased against the defendants, both men were
convicted on a number of charges relating to explosives and being a member of an illegal organization, the KIA, which is the armed
wing of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO). Lahphai Gam, 56, received a sentence of 20 years in prison, while the younger
Brang Yung, 25, was given 21 years.
...Thein Sein has so far failed to act on the formal request issued last October by a coalition of Kachin civil society groups to
grant Brang Yung and Lahpai Gam a pardon of their own. The pair have instead had much better success internationally: In separate
decisions that were released last year, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention ruled that the men’s continued detention was
illegal under international law and called for their immediate release. Their cases were brought to the UN group by lawyers working
with the London-based Burma Campaign UK, an advocacy group that has taken a strong interest in the plight of civilians caught up in
the Kachin conflict.
...Mar Hkar, who believes that the UN working group’s decisions strongly bolster his clients claims of innocence, says he was very
pleased that the Burma Campaign UK got involved with the case. In doing so, he says, the group has drawn attention to the ongoing
human rights situation in Kachin State, which in many ways has been overshadowed by developments in the rest of the country.
ref:irrawaddy.org
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