At least two high-ranking staffers from the Office of the Chief of Military Intelligence, or OCMI, have been sentenced to long jail terms for corruption, according to a Rangoon businessman.

Brig-Gen Than Tun

Among the sentenced were Brig-Gen Than Tun, head of the OCMI’s Politics and Counter-intelligence Department and Brig-Gen Myint Zaw, head of the OCMI’s Border Security and Intelligence Department (often referred to by its Burmese acronym Na Sa Ka) according to the source, who spoke to The Irrawaddy on Tuesday on condition of anonymity. Than Tun was sentenced to 21 years in prison and Myint Zaw to 40 years, he said.

The two intelligence officers’ jail terms, yet to be confirmed by official sources, come in the wake of the October 18 ouster of OCMI chief and prime minister Gen Khin Nyunt (he was arrested on October 18, but officially relieved of his duties the next day). Members of Khin Nyunt’s family, intelligence personnel and a number of businessmen were arrested, then the National Intelligence Bureau Law was annulled. Khin Nyunt’s personal astrologer Bodaw Teinkyar Than Hla was also detained, according to the source.

State-run Burmese vernacular newspapers on Sunday, November 7, ran the full text of a speech given by Gen Thura Shwe Mann on October 24 to Rangoon businessmen in justification of the putsch. According to the printed text, he said that 186 government servants from OCMI, the ministries of immigration and home affairs and the customs department were punished in accordance with the law.

Most of the detained intelligence officials are being held at a Burma Army Light Infantry Battalion compound at Ye Mon, on the outskirts of Rangoon, according to an editor of a weekly Rangoon journal.

On Friday, November 5, Minister of Home Affairs Col Tin Hlaing, Minister of Labor Tin Win were “granted permission” to retire.