Australia’s ‘unlikely prisoner’, Sean Turnell, recalls ‘memorable birthday cake’ amid 650 ‘lonely’ days in Myanmar jail
- Sean Turnell, a co-defendant with Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, was imprisoned in Myanmar after being accused of being a spy
- On his 58th birthday, his fellow inmates did the impossible and made him a birthday cake in a makeshift oven, managing to procure some flour and water
Sean Turnell, an economics professor at Macquarie University, was detained soon after, as the military launched a sweeping and bloody crackdown on democracy protests and those who had worked with Suu Kyi’s government.
Accused of being a spy and convicted by a junta-run court in a case slammed by rights groups, Turnell served 650 days in prison in Myanmar before being pardoned and released last year.
In an interview marking the publication of his new book about the ordeal, he recounted feeling he might not make it out alive, being a co-defendant with Nobel laureate Suu Kyi and the most memorable birthday cake ever.
Held first in a police station in Yangon, he could still hear the banging of pots and pans that marked the early protests against the coup, he wrote in An Unlikely Prisoner.
Of the weeks-long investigation into him by the police and military: “I can only use that overused label of Kafkaesque,” he said.
