Myanmar poet Khet Thi who died in detention had ‘organs removed’, wife says
- Khet Thi and his wife were detained by armed soldiers on Saturday
- The next day he was dead in a morgue, internal organs taken out
Myanmar poet Khet Thi, whose works declare resistance to the ruling junta, died in detention and his body was returned with the organs removed, his family said on Sunday.
A spokesman for the junta did not answer calls to request comment on the death of Khet Thi, who had penned the line “They shoot in the head, but they don’t know the revolution is in the heart”. His Facebook page said he was 45.
Khet Thi’s wife said both of them were taken for interrogation on Saturday by armed soldiers and police in the central town of Shwebo, in the Sagaing region – a centre of resistance to the coup in which elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi was ousted.
“I was interrogated. So was he. They said he was at the interrogation centre. But he didn’t come back, only his body,” his wife Chaw Su told BBC Burmese language news in tears from Monywa, around 100km (60 miles) away by road.
“They called me in the morning and told me to meet him at the hospital in Monywa. I thought it was just for a broken arm or something … But when I arrived here, he was at the morgue and his internal organs were taken out,” she said.
She had been told at the hospital he had a heart problem, but had not bothered to read the death certificate because she was sure it would not be true, Chaw Su said. Reuters was unable to reach the hospital for comment.
Chaw Su said the army had planned to bury him but that she pleaded with them for the body. She did not say how she knew her husband’s organs had been removed.