Aung San Suu Kyi says trial politically motivated

Thursday, June 11, 2009 at 5:10 AM Posted by Beijing News


Myanmar pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi believes her trial by the ruling junta is "politically motivated", her lawyer said Thursday, as he lodged an appeal over a ban on two witnesses.

The opposition leader met with her legal team in prison on Wednesday to discuss her defence against charges that she broke the rules of her house arrest when an American man swam to her lakeside property in May.

"Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said yesterday when we met that the trial is politically motivated," Nyan Win, one of her three lawyers and the spokesman for her National League for Democracy NLD, told AFP.

The 63-year-old Nobel laureate faces between three and five years in jail if convicted, which would keep her locked up far beyond controversial elections which the military regime has promised to hold next year.

Critics have dismissed the planned polls as a sham designed to entrench the military's hold on power as Aung San Suu Kyi is barred from standing.

Her legal team submitted a high court application on Thursday seeking an appeal to allow testimony from two defence witnesses who were banned by judges at the trial, being held behind closed doors at Yangon's Insein Prison.

"The high court will hold a hearing for admission on the coming 17th June," Nyan Win said, adding that if the court decided to admit the complaint, it would then schedule a further date for a formal appeal hearing.

A lower court on Tuesday overturned a ban on her having a second defence witness to testify -- one legal expert has already given evidence -- but upheld the ruling excluding the other two.

The barred witnesses are Win Tin, a dissident journalist who was Myanmar's longest serving prisoner until his release in September, and Tin Oo, the detained deputy leader of the NLD.

Nyan Win also said that the wife of another of Aung San Suu Kyi's lawyers had been fired from her government job on Tuesday, which he took as a political move by the authorities.

Lawyer Hla Myo Myint's wife Khin Khin Aye was dismissed from her work as a senior manager overseeing cooperative-run businesses.

"We assume that it is to put pressure on us because of the trial," Nyan Win said.

He added that Aung San Suu Kyi is dissatisfied that her lakeside home is still guarded by authorities despite her house arrest having officially ended in May.

"She is not very satisfied," said Nyan Win.

"She said that her house arrest ended on May 26, but her friends are not allowed to go into her house for cleaning. Security staff said they are still waiting for permission from their superiors," he told AFP.

Aung San Suu Kyi has spent 13 of the last 19 years in detention since the junta refused to recognise the NLD's landslide victory in the country's last elections, in 1990.

She has spent most of that time in virtual isolation at her house, where the regime has allowed her to receive visits from only a handful of people, including her doctors and lawyers.

The trial, which has drawn a storm of international protest, is due to resume for a procedural hearing on Friday.



Janeiro. REUTERS/Alex Carvalho

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