Former Myanmar dictator's daughter released from house arrest

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/081213/afp/081213075744asiapacificnews.html

YANGON (AFP) - Officials in Myanmar have released the daughter of the country's former dictator Ne Win after six years under house arrest, police said Saturday.

A senior police official told AFP that Ne Win's favoured daughter Sandar Win, who is now in her 50s, was released late Friday.

"She was released yesterday evening as her detention period was completed," he said, under condition of anonymity.

Sandar Win had been under house arrest at her lakeside home in Myanmar's main city Yangon since 2002 after being convicted on treason charges for plotting a coup.


Her husband Aye Zaw Win and three sons were sentenced to death for the same crime, but remain locked up in Yangon's notorious Insein prison.

Ne Win ruled the country from 1962-88 after ousting Myanmar's first elected post-independence leader U Nu in a coup.


His socialist programme sent the country, once one of Southeast Asia's wealthiest nations, spiralling into poverty. It remains one of the world's poorest nations.

Ne Win resigned in 1988 after a mass uprising against the country's junta, which was crushed in a brutal crackdown that left an estimated 3,000 dead.

He died in December 2002, aged 92, while under house arrest with his daughter.