http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2010/01/201019459779758.html
Saturday, January 09, 2010
07:45 Mecca time, 04:45 GMT
Death sentences over Myanmar leaks
The leaked photos included those purportedly showing secret
tunnels [Democratic Voice of Burma - DVB]
A foreign ministry employee and a retired army officer in Myanmar have
been sentenced to death for allegedly leaking confidential details of a
government visit to North Korea.
The two men were handed their sentence by a court inside the country's
Insein prison on Thursday, official sources said.
A third man was jailed for 15 years on a related offence.
The three defendants were arrested after photographs and documents from
the visit to North Korea by General Thura Shwe Mann, the third most senior
member of the military government, appeared on a website.
The pictures showed Shwe Mann and his entourage visiting military
facilities in North Korea and China.
A website run by exiles in Thailand said that Shwe Mann's visit was to
procure arms, discuss tunnel-building projects and other matters.
'Secret tunnels'
Among the pictures purportedly leaked by the three men were those of an
alleged secret network of tunnels built by North Korean experts inside Myanmar,
which were published in June by the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), based in
Oslo, Norway.
There has been speculation that the tunnels are part of secret nuclear
facilities being developed with the assistance of Pyongyang.
During a visit to Thailand last July, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary
of state, said North Korea could be sharing atomic technology with Myanmar.
The documents further showed that Maung Aye, the government number two,
visited Russia in 2006 to discuss the procurement of a guided missile system,
the DVB said on its website on Friday.
The military government, which took power in 1962, has not commented on
the verdicts or the accusations surrounding the leaked documents.
The death penalty is rarely carried out in Myanmar, with sentences
normally commuted to life imprisonment.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
