Myanmar puts democracy icon Suu Kyi on trial

Monday, May 18, 2009 at 2:16 AM Posted by Beijing News


Myanmar opposition icon Aung San Suu Kyi went on trial on Monday amid tight security at a notorious prison, facing a further five years in detention on charges of harbouring a US man who swam to her home.

Dozens of supporters of the ailing Nobel Peace Prize laureate gathered near Insein prison for the hearing, despite the presence of riot police who set up barbed wire blockades and sealed off roads to the compound near Yangon.

Myanmar's junta has ignored a storm of international protest to push ahead with charges that the 63-year-old violated the terms of her house arrest, under which she could also be barred from standing in elections due next year.

"The trial has started," a Myanmar official told AFP on condition of anonymity. The official later said the proceedings had been adjourned until Tuesday after about five hours of hearings, but did not give further details.

Security forces barred the ambassadors of Britain, France, Germany and Italy from the jail as they attempted to gain entry to the court, which is meeting behind closed doors, a western diplomat said.

US national John Yettaw also went on trial over the incident in which he used a pair of home-made flippers to swim across a lake earlier this month to the residence where Aung San Suu Kyi is kept in virtual isolation.

A US embassy car entered the prison compound but a spokesman for the embassy in Yangon was not immediately able to confirm whether Yettaw was receiving consular assistance.

The trial of Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent most of the last 19 years in detention, comes just days after she was imprisoned at a "guest house" inside the Insein prison compound on charges of breaching security laws.

Her lawyer said she would protest her innocence.

"Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has studied the section of the law under which she was charged and says that she didn't commit any crime," lawyer Kyi Win told AFP. Daw is a Burmese language term of respect.

"She just felt sorry for this man Yettaw as he had leg cramps after he swam across the lake. That's why she allowed him to stay," Kyi Win said.

He said Yettaw had also come to the house in 2008 but that two aides who live with Aung San Suu Kyi had asked him to go back, adding that her doctor had informed authorities about the earlier visit at the time.

The two assistants were also put on trial, Kyi Win said.

Several dozen members of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party gathered outside the security cordon at the jail, including Win Tin, who was Myanmar's longest serving political prisoner until his release in September, witnesses said.

The junta, headed by reclusive Senior General Than Shwe, has kept Aung San Suu Kyi in detention for a total of 13 years since 1990, when it refused to recognise her party's landslide victory in Myanmar's last elections.

Her latest six-year period of detention was due to expire on May 27, but Yettaw's visit has apparently provided the ruling generals with the ammunition they need to extend her detention past the 2010 polls.

Critics say the elections are a sham that the junta hopes to use to gain legitimacy and consolidate its grip on power, with a constitution forced through last year enshrining a role for the military in any government.

US President Barack Obama formally extended sanctions against Myanmar on Friday. But there has been silence from most of Myanmar's Asian neighbours who value its rich natural resources.



A participant attends the 17th Life Ball in Vienna. AFP/Joe Klamar

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