[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index
][Thread Index
]
Uncle Leo.
Death of Mr Leo Nichols
***********************
United States has called on Burma's military rulers to free all
the country's political prisoners.
A State Department spokesman, Mr. Glyn Davies, made the call
yesterday while speaking to reporters about the death of Mr Leo Nichols,
a Greek-Burmese businessman who had been honorary consul-general in
Rangoon for Switzerland, Norway, Denmark and Finland.
Mr Davies said Washington had no way of verifying the official
Burmese account of the death of Mr Nichols, who had been a friend of the
opposition leader, Ms Aung San Suu Kyi.
Reports from Rangoon said Mr Nichols, 65, had suffered a cerebral
haemorrhage in his cell on 22 June, Mr Davies said.
He had been a prisoner since April, when he was sentenced to
three years' jail for operating a telephone and fax from his home without
permission.
In Perth (Australia) today, Mr Nichols' family joined the Swiss,
Norwegian and Danish governments and Amnesty International in calling for
an independent inquiry into his death.
Mr Nichols' son, Mr Bill Nichols, a lecturer at WA's Curtin
University, said he had been told that his father died in Rangoon General
Hospital at 11 am on 22 June after being transferred from the Insein
prison hospital an hour earlier.
The military authorities had conducted an autopsy, without
independent monitoring, which found a brain haemorrhage caused Mr
Nichols' death. They had also organised a funeral, at Saw Bwa Gyi
Christian Cemetery on 23 June, forbidding family and friends to attend.
Mr Nichols said that although he believed his father had been
jailed on fabricated charges, his association with Ms Suu Kyi was not
necessarily the reason for his persecution.
He siad his father had also clashed with Burma's military junta,
the State Law and Order Restoration Council, over the council acquisition
of land that had been part of a dead relative's estate.
[ Reuter, AAP, 27 June 1996].
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------