Myanmar has reduced the 27-year prison sentence of former leader Aung San Suu Kyi by around a sixth as part of a traditional New Year’s amnesty, according to her lawyer.

Her sentence had been commuted by four and a half years, her lawyer told Reuters on Friday, but it was unclear if the Nobel laureate would be allowed ‌to serve the rest of her sentence under house arrest.

Ms Suu Kyi, 80, has been serving a prison sentence totalling 27 years for a litany of offences since the military overthrew her government in a 2021 coup. The charges against her, ranging from incitement ⁠and corruption to election ​fraud and ⁠violating a state secrets law, have been denounced as politically motivated.

She remains in prison without access to family or counsel, and even her whereabouts are unknown.

As state counsellor, Ms Suu Kyi led Myanmar’s from 2016 to 2021, sparking brief hope for democratic reform in the country. She was among the first members of her government to be arrested by the military on 1 February 2021 and is now one of thousands of political prisoners in the country. Her journey is documented in a film released by The Independent entitled Cancelled: The rise and fall of Aung San Suu Kyi.

The relief for Ms Suu Kyi came after new president Min Aung Hlaing announced a mass amnesty for around 4,500 prisoners and reduction of sentences for many more to mark the traditional new year, state media reported on Friday.

The amnesty covered former president Win Myint, an ally of Ms Suu Kyi who was arrested along with her, state media reported. He served ‌as president ​from 2018 ‌to 2021.

The identities of other prominent figures released under the amnesty scheme were not immediately available.

Relatives and friends of many prisoners waited outside the main gate at Insein Prison, in the northern outskirts of Yangon, since morning to receive their loved ones.

Among the 4,335 prisoners to be freed were 179 foreigners, who would be deported, MRTV said. The report mentioned commutation of death ⁠sentences to life, reduction of life sentences to ​40 years, ⁠and term reductions by one-sixth for other prisoners, without elaborating.

The military detained more ⁠than 30,000 people on various political charges after the coup in 2021, according to a human rights group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

Western governments and rights groups have repeatedly called for the unconditional release of Ms Suu Kyi and other prisoners, warning that their continued detention undermined any prospects for political reconciliation.

Ms Suu Kyi has been incommunicado since her arrest, with her son, Kim Aris, consistently raising fears over her health and well-being in prison. He has in recent months been calling on military authorities to provide immediate proof of life for his mother as she has spent more than five years in detention.

Mr Aris earlier said he had received only limited updates about her status but knew that her health was declining.

The daughter of the independence hero Aung San, Ms Suu Kyi has spent nearly 20 years in detention over multiple periods, much of it under house arrest.

She was for long the face of the country’s pro-democracy movement against military rule and after Myanmar began opening up, she led the National League for Democracy to a landslide victory in the 2015 election.

Her international reputation suffered after she defended the military at the International Court of Justice against allegations of ethnic cleansing of the minority Rohingya Muslims.

The 2021 military takeover plunged the country into a civil war that has killed nearly 8,000 civilians by conservative estimates.

Mr Aung Hlaing, the former military commander who led the coup, was sworn in as president following an election that critics said was neither free nor fair and was orchestrated to keep the military’s grip on power.