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The first witness of murdered Austr
Aussie rebel murder claim
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[Leo Nichols was a wheeler-dealer in Burma who just became too much for
its ruthless rulers]
Burma's bloddy military regime murdered Australian-born Leo Nichols, says
a former prisoner who saw him dying in the country's most feared jail.
Speaking for the first time since escaping from Burma, Moe Aye said the
65-year-old friend of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was tortured
and denied medication before dying in Rangoon's Insein prison in June.
"He was murdered, deliberately murdered," said Mr Moe, the first withness
to emerge from the jail.
Burma last year turner down demands by Foreign Minister Alexander Downer
for a full investigation into Mr Nichols' death, saying he died of
natural causes after being jailed for having a fax machine. But Mr Moe
said he saw Mr Nichols being broken down by torture.
"He told me: 'I am afraid of the night', because it was then that he was
taken away for questioning," Mr Moe said in Bangkok.
"Nichols was murdered. He was physically and mentally broken down."
Mr Nichols was along-time resident of Burma, starting a shipping company
in 1945 before the nationalisation of private firms in 1962.
But his acute business skills and unlimited energy enabled his activities
to thrive, even under communist rule.
Mr Nichols became the honorary consulgeneral for Scandinavian countries.
His passion for a free Burma led to numerous run-ins with the junta - the
most celebrated being in 1989.
While being interrogated by military intelligence, he obtained permission
for his cook to send enough food in for him and the guards.
Mr Nichols, who is survived by wife Felicity and five children, was
buried with a bottle of whisky.
Burma's military junta blamed his death on something he ate.
They refused a request for an independent autopsy and hastily buried the
body.
"He is our national and our citizen and he has trangressed the law and
then we had to take action," Foreign Minister Ohn Gyaw said last year.
Mr Moe, an engineering student, was serving a seven-year sentence for his
political activities when he saw Mr Nichols.
Mr Moe said Mr Nichols suffered from dysentery, hypertension and diabetes
in jail.
Mr Moe, 34, said he himself was severly beaten and knew of two other
political prisoners who died of their treatment.
He is now in Thailand ,iving under an assumed name and is writing an
account of the death of Mr Nichols.
[By Andrew Bolt in Bangkok]
Herald Sun, 21 January 1998, page 9 - the photo: Leo Nichols with Nobel
Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi.
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