Myanmar opposition icon Aung San Suu Kyi went on trial amid tight security at a notorious prison yesterday, facing up to five more years in detention on charges of harboring a US man who swam to her home.
Dozens of supporters of the ailing Nobel Peace Prize laureate gathered near Insein prison outside Yangon as the hearing got under way, one of whom was arrested by the phalanx of riot police posted behind barbed wire blockades.
The ruling junta pushed ahead with the trial of the 63-year-old despite the threat of tougher sanctions from the EU over the charges against her, which allege that she violated the terms of her house arrest.
“We can definitely win according to the law. She didn’t do anything wrong,” Nyan Win, a spokesman for Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party, said after the court was adjourned.
Lawyers for the pro-democracy leader opened the proceedings with an application for the trial to be held in open court, which the judges rejected, Nyan Win said.
The court then heard from the first of an expected 22 witnesses, police Colonel Zaw Min Aung, who filed the original complaint against the pro-democracy leader after the incident involving the US man, Nyan Win said.
He quoted the policeman as saying that Aung San Suu Kyi had “violated the personal restrictions on her” by having contact with John Yettaw, the man who swam across a lake to her home earlier this month.
Aung San Suu Kyi did not speak during the hearing, he said.
But she was “alert and wanted to tell friends that she is in good health,” he said.
Her latest six-year period of detention was due to expire next Wednesday, but Yettaw’s visit has apparently provided the junta with the ammunition they need to extend her detention past next year’s polls.
Yettaw, 53, reportedly described as a harmless eccentric by relatives in the US, also appeared at the trial along with two aides of Aung San Suu Kyi. A US consular official attended the hearing, Nyan Win said.
Security forces barred the ambassadors of Britain, France, Germany and Italy from the jail as they attempted to gain entry to the court, a Western diplomat said.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s lawyer, Kyi Win, said that she would protest her innocence.
“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.
Several dozen NLD members 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 EU said yesterday it would consider boosting its sanctions against the Myanmar regime because of the trial.
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