Myanmar opposition court sentences 9 men to 20 years for killing priest

MANDALAY, Myanmar (OSV News) -- 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, according to Fides agency. The news outlet, linked to the Pontifical Mission Societies and Dicastery of Evangelization, reported the sentence July 17.

Initial reports said that Father Donald Martin Ye Naing Win was stabbed to death and mutilated Feb. 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 Father Win, 44, a priest of the Archdiocese of Mandalay, with Fides reporting he was shot in the compound of the church, according to church officials and local sources.

According to Fides, 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 themselves who tracked down and arrested the attackers: "In some way, the PDF themselves tried to bring to justice the armed men who, in the situation of general instability, are out of control. The motive for the killing remains unclear," according to the same sources.

"We know that Father 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 Father 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," Father John said. "Even the family would like greater clarity and full justice."

The court that tried the case operates under the NUG's informal legal system, which has emerged in areas where the junta's state institutions have collapsed. The courts rely partly on Myanmar's pre-coup laws and partly on international human rights principles, sources said. District-level judges in these areas can impose sentences up to, and including, the death penalty.

The Sagaing region has seen some of the fiercest fighting since the 2021 coup, with resistance forces clashing almost daily with junta troops.

In February, Burmese Cardinal Charles Maung Bo of Yangon, president of Myanmar's Catholic bishops' conference, lamented Father Win's death. He prayed that in "learning from these heartbreaking experiences that we have encountered, may the fraternal spirit be awakened, and we earnestly appeal for an end to the violence."

"May the blood and sacrifices of countless innocent people, along with Father Donald Martin Ye Naing Win, serve as an offering to ending the violence that is occurring throughout the Nation," Cardinal Bo said.