YANGON – Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi testified at her prison trial yesterday as the nation’s military regime tried again to justify a case that has enraged the West and annoyed its neighbours.
The junta lifted her current house arrest a day before it expired today. But Suu Kyi remains in detention while her trial on charges of breaking the terms of that order continues.
The Nobel peace laureate faces up to five years in jail if convicted for allowing an American intruder to stay at her home for two days in early May. She has denied the charges.
‘The house arrest has been lifted, but she is still under detention,’ Nyan Win, one of her lawyers, told reporters after yesterday’s session inside Yangon’s notorious Insein prison.
‘I don’t know whether to be happy or sorry,’ he said.
In her first testimony since the trial began a week ago, Suu Kyi said the intruder, 53-year-old John Yettaw, arrived at her Yangon home early on May 4 after swimming across Inya Lake. ‘I just allowed him to stay for a while,’ she said, according to witnesses in the court.
Yettaw, who claims he dreamt that Suu Kyi’s life was in danger, left before midnight the next day, she said.
Asked by Judge Thaung Nyunt if she reported him to authorities, Suu Kyi replied: ‘No, I did not.’
Her lawyers say she allowed him to stay for humanitarian reasons after he complained of leg cramps from the swim. – Nampa-Reuters
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