Pope asks for liberation of Myanmar's detained ex-leader Aung San Suu Kyi

ROME: Pope Francis has called for the liberation of Myanmar's detained former leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and offered the Vatican as a safe haven, the pontiff said in a recent conversation with Jesuits in Asia.

"I asked for the Ms Aung San Suu Kyi's release and received her son in Rome. I offered the Vatican to receive her in our territory," he said in a private conversation during a recent 12-day tour across Southeast Asia.

The 87-year old pontiff visited Myanmar in December 2017.

Suu Kyi has been detained by the military since it overthrew her government in a 2021 coup. It is unclear where the hugely popular 78-year-old is being held or if she has been allowed any visitors.

Italian daily Corriere della Sera published the comments on Tuesday in an article by Father Antonio Spadaro, a Rome-based Jesuit priest who attends the meetings and writes about them afterwards with the pope's permission.

"The future of the (Myanmar) must be peace based on respect for the dignity and rights of all, on respect for a democratic order that allows everyone to contribute to the common good," Pope Francis added.

Suu Kyi, the British-educated daughter of Myanmar independence hero Aung San, has been jailed for a total of 27 years for crimes ranging from treason and bribery to violations of telecommunications and disaster management laws, which she denies.

Her supporters say the cases were politically motivated to keep her out of the spotlight and stifle pro-democracy forces. The military maintains Suu Kyi was given due process.

On Tuesday, a source familiar with Suu Kyi's previous legal cases, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue, said her lawyers had no access to her to relay any messages.

After a decade of tentative democracy and economic reform, Myanmar is now locked in a civil war between an armed resistance movement loosely allied with ethnic minority rebels, and a military that has lost control of swathes of the country.

The United Nations last week said the military government has ramped up killings and arrests in an apparent bid to silence opponents and recruit soldiers in an escalating conflict.

The military says it is fighting "terrorists" determined to destroy the country.

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