Suu Kyi charged over US intruder

YANGON – Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was charged yesterday with breaking the terms of her house arrest and faces up to five years in jail after an American intruder sneaked into her lakeside home, her party said.

Opposition activists denounced her trial, set to begin on Monday, as a ploy by the country’s junta to keep Suu Kyi, 63, sidelined ahead of elections in 2010.
Her National League for Democracy (NLD), which won a landslide election victory in 1990 only to be denied power by the military, ‘strongly condemned’ the new charges two weeks before her latest six-year detention is due to expire on May 27.
The Nobel Peace laureate has spent 13 of the past 19 years in detention, most of it held virtually incommunicado at her home, her telephone line cut, mail intercepted and visitors restricted.
She was charged under the Law Safeguarding the State from the Dangers of the Subversive Elements, which imposes a three-to-five-year jail term if a detainee ‘violates the restrictions imposed on them.’
The charges stem from a bizarre incident involving US citizen John William Yettaw, who, according to state media, claimed to have swum across Inya Lake and spent two days in Suu Kyi’s compound earlier this month.
Yettaw and two women who live with Suu Kyi were charged with abetting, or ‘encouraging a violation of the law,’ said Aung Thein, one of Suu Kyi’s lawyers.
In addition, Yettaw was charged with immigration offences and ‘illegal swimming’ in the lake, which is a restricted zone, Aung Thein said, adding that he faced up to five years in prison.
Yettaw was arrested on May 6 as he swam back from Suu Kyi’s home. US embassy officials were allowed to see him on Wednesday but spokesman Richard Mei said he revealed little about his motives. Embassy officials declined comment about the charges.
It was apparently the second time that Yettaw – described by state media as a 53-year-old psychology student and a resident of Missouri – had tried to meet Suu Kyi at her home.
Suu Kyi’s main lawyer, Kyi Win, said Yettaw was told to leave after his first attempt in late 2008. This time Yettaw refused.
‘He said he was so tired and wanted to rest, but she pleaded with him. Then he slept overnight on the ground floor,’ Kyi Win told the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB).
Suu Kyi’s detention in a house inside the prison will renew fears for her health after she was put on an intravenous drip last week for dehydration and low blood pressure.
Her main doctor, Tin Myo Win, was detained last week and is still being held at an undisclosed location.
Aung Thein, the lawyer, was not in court himself on Thursday but quoted colleagues as saying Suu Kyi looked quite well.
– Nampa-Reuters