Reuters-A spokesman for the British

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Subject: Reuters-A spokesman for the British embassy in Yangon said the 

A spokesman for the British embassy in Yangon said the
02:28 a.m. Sep 02, 1999 Eastern
A spokesman for the British embassy in Yangon said the ministry told the
embassy in writing that Mawdsley had been sentenced by a court in Tachilek
the same day he was arrested.

He received five years under the Immigration Act and seven under a law
governing printing and publications and was currently being held in a prison
in the town of Kengtung near Tachilek, the embassy official said.

``We are unhappy with the way the case was handled and that we did not have
access to Mr Mawdsley before the trial took place. We are making this clear
to the Burmese (Myanmar) authorities,'' the British embassy said in a
statement.

Mawdsley had been arrested for protesting against military rule in Myanmar
twice before -- in 1997 and 1998. He spent 99 days in solitary confinement
in Yangon's notorious Insein jail last year after being sentenced to five
years for illegal entry. Yangon says he was freed from that sentence after
pleas from his parents and the British and Australian embassies.