Friends of Australian economist Sean Turnell are "hopeful" in the wake of local media reports that a verdict will be delivered next week following his secret trial in Myanmar.
Professor Turnell was an advisor to former Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi when the military overthrew her government in a coup more than 18 months ago.
He was arrested in the days following the coup and was been put on trial for alleged breaches of the Official Secrets Act.
He pleaded not guilty, and faces 14 years in prison if convicted.
Local media reports indicate a final outcome in his case is slated for next Thursday, September 29.
Sources close to the court have told Radio Free Asia his case will be finalised on that date, after final arguments were heard on Thursday.
Lawyers have been barred from speaking to the media about the secretive process, but the report is consistent with a similar account published on The Irrawaddy website last week.
Australian officials have been blocked from attending his court hearings in the past.
The ABC has approached the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for comment.
Fellow economist and friend Tim Harcourt said if a verdict and sentence was handed down next week, he hoped the next step would be swift deportation so Professor Turnell could be reunited with his family in Sydney.
"The consistent advice we've been getting from former diplomats is that often they bring down the sentence, but then they deport the person if they're a foreigner," he told the ABC.
That was what happened in the case of US journalist Danny Fenster last year.
"I guess that's the most optimistic scenario," Professor Harcourt said.
"It's been so long now, and we've had a lot of false alarms … but [we're] always hopeful."
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen appealed for Professor Turnell's freedom in a meeting with junta leader General Min Aung Hlaing earlier this year, and last month the UN's Special Envoy on Myanmar Noeleen Heyzer also "conveyed a specific request from the Australian government" to ask for his release.
He said Professor Turnell was greatly respected in Myanmar and his motivation was to improve the economic welfare of the country's people — not to interfere in their political system.
'The world has forgotten them'
According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, more than 15,500 people have been arrested since the coup, and more than 2,300 have been killed — including the high-profile execution of four political prisoners.
This week, UN-appointed independent human rights expert Tom Andrews told the Human Rights Council that the situation in post-coup Myanmar was spiralling "from bad to worse, to horrific".
Mr Andrews said 1.3 million people had been displaced, some 28,000 homes had been destroyed and villages had been burned.
"Many in Myanmar have come to the conclusion that the world has forgotten them, or simply doesn't care," he said.
Dr Tun-Aung Shwe, the Australian representative of the National Unity Government (NUG), described the junta as operating like "mafia criminals" and condemned the ongoing detention of Professor Turnell, and the recent arrest of former British ambassador Vicky Bowman, as "hostage diplomacy".
The NUG is a group of elected civilian MPs, anti-coup protesters and ethnic group leaders formed after the coup. They are urging the UN to recognise pre-coup ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun as the legitimate representative of Myanmar.
"The thing the Australian community needs to understand is that the Myanmar military is not a military, they are just a terrorist organisation," Dr Shwe said.
He said ending the junta's impunity and cutting off their revenue flow with targeted economic sanctions against the military and its business conglomerates were necessary.
"Imposing the targeted sanctions is a really effective tool to weaken the military power, that can save a lot of people's lives," he said.
Htwe Htwe Thein, an associate professor of international business at Curtin University, said it was embarrassing that Australia had imposed no new sanctions on Myanmar's junta leaders since the coup.
Australia had imposed sanctions following the military's treatment of the Rohingya in 2017, which forced 700,000 to flee.
Since the coup, the Australian government has ended military cooperation and condemned the execution of political prisoners.
"It is a tipping point now to do something," she said, adding people in Myanmar were dealing with overlapping humanitarian and economic crises.
"The reality they're facing is horrendous … I think Myanmar is largely forgotten," she said.
"The currency has fallen by more than half of its value, commodity prices are escalating beyond belief. And 40 per cent of the population now lives under the poverty line. So it's a dire situation."
"Perhaps Australia, as a democratic nation in the region, can take leadership in linking up with other democracies in the region and amplify the pressure to restore democracy.
"It is high time for a change of course for Australia."
The Myanmar embassy in Canberra and the military's ministries of information and defence have been contacted for comment.
