The Australian economist and former advisor to ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi said his time in prison made him reassess everything. From sharing a concrete cell with rats and “horrible black tarantulas” to being chained to a steel chair in a windowless box, Sean Turnell said his more than 20-months as a prisoner in Myanmar was horrific.
![[A member of the ethnic armed group Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) keeping watch at a checkpoint in the town of Kyaukme in Myanmar's northern Shan State]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/09/24/10/GettyImages-2160635872.jpg)
The prison cells ranged from the rudimentary to terrible. At first he was held in a box the size of a small shipping container, where he was interrogated and punched. Later he was moved to a sparse cell with an iron barred door which led straight to the elements, allowing Myanmar’s “incredible heat” and monsoonal rain directly into the cell.
![[Sean Turnell, a detained Australian adviser to Myanmar’s deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi, getting vaccinated against the Covid-19 coronavirus in Insein prison in Yangon in 2001]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2022/02/07/09/AFP_9YK43P.jpg)
“Apart from weather, they’re completely open to other elements so rats and spiders, and centipedes, and awful black tarantulas and scorpions, it’s really awful stuff,” he said. “The cells are not conducive to any sort of comfort at all, they’re really little more than animal pens.".
Watch: Cancelled: The rise and fall of Aung San Suu Kyi Documentary on Independent TV. The Australian economist and former economic advisor to Myanmar’s ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi said he used his imagination to escape his confines, and took comfort in the small bit of exercise he could get pacing his small cell.
“But all of it does take a toll. The physical deprivation, the constant anxiety, the fear, the incredible insecurity of not knowing when or if you’re going to be released definitely takes a toll on you,” he said in an interview with The Independent.
