A week after the Burmese military seized power, a Twitter account that had been dormant for nearly a decade flickered back into life.

The Twitter user mocked anti-coup protesters, hundreds of whom have been killed in a crackdown by security forces since the Feb 1 coup. After a police truck fired high-pressure water cannons on demonstrators in the capital city of Naypyidaw on Feb 8, he made a trolling reference to the nation's traditional April new year celebration: "Water festival come earlier for them lol."

A few weeks later, the user wrote "#fuckthereds", making a dismissive reference to the political party of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Prize-winning civilian leader who had been overthrown and arrested in the coup.

A review of an archived version of the account, which has since been shut down, revealed the username was a pseudonym belonging to Ivan Htet, the 33-year-old son of a leading figure in the coup: the chief of the air force, Maung Maung Kyaw.

But Ivan Htet hasn't just been...