Myanmar: Aung San Suu Kyi house action gets no bids at auction

BBC News:

An auction of the villa of Myanmar’s detained leader Aung San Suu Kyi has failed after no bids were made for it.

A court had ordered its sale in January following a long-running ownership dispute with her brother.

Lawyers for Ms Suu Kyi, who has been detained since her government was overthrown by a military coup in 2021, have challenged holding the auction without her consent.

She has been unable to meet her lawyers since December 2022.

The reserve price for the property was set at 315 billion kyats ($90m; £70m).

Court officials stood outside the front gate of the house at 10:00 local time (03:30 GMT) and asked three times if there were any bids, before closing the auction. Only journalists, officials and undercover police were present.

Her lakeside home at 54 University Avenue, Yangon, is almost as famous as Aung San Suu Kyi herself.

She grew up in it, and in 1988 began her long campaign for democracy from it, using it as the first headquarters of her party, the National League for Democracy. And during her three terms of house arrest, totalling 15 years until 2010, she was confined there.

The two-storey, colonial-era house was given to Ms Suu Kyi’s mother in 1953, following the death of one of her brothers in a drowning accident in the swimming pool of their old home.