A court affiliated with Myanmar’s exiled National Unity Government has sentenced nine men to 20 years in prison for the killing of a Catholic priest in the country’s conflict-torn Sagaing region earlier this year. Source: Catholic Review.
Initial reports said that Fr Donald Martin Ye Naing Win was stabbed to death and mutilated on February 14. Parishioners discovered the priest’s body on the grounds of Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Kan Gyi Taw, a small village in central Myanmar’s Shwe Bo district.
The defendants were convicted of murdering Fr Win, 44, a priest of the Archdiocese of Mandalay, with Catholic news agency Fides reporting he was shot in the compound of the church, according to church officials and local sources.
Investigators said the attackers were members of armed groups aligned with the People’s Defense Forces, or PDF, the National Unity Government’s military wing that operates in territory outside the control of Myanmar’s ruling junta.
The NUG, formed by ousted lawmakers after the military seized power in a 2021 coup, claims authority over “liberated zones” where it has set up a parallel administration.
As local sources confirmed to Fides, it was the People’s Defense Forces who tracked down and arrested the attackers.
“We know that Fr Donald was a man of God, a parish priest devoted to his people, a good and sincere person who worked especially for the education of children left without school because of the civil war,” said a priest of the Mandalay Archdiocese who identified himself only as Fr John.
While Catholic leaders expressed moderate satisfaction that someone had been held accountable, they also voiced frustration at the lack of full transparency.
“There are still too many unanswered questions,” Fr John said. “Even the family would like greater clarity and full justice.”
FULL STORY
Myanmar opposition court sentences 9 men to 20 years for killing priest (Catholic Review)
