Myanmar Dissident Testifies at Trial

May 27, 2009

Myanmar Dissident Testifies at Trial

By SETH MYDANS

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Taking the stand for the first time in her trial, Myanmar’s pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi denied Tuesday that she had broken the terms of her house arrest when she allowed an intruder to spend the night three weeks ago, according to reports from the court.

Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, 63, said she had only given “temporary shelter” to the intruder, an American who swam across a lake to her residence, according to The Associated Press, whose reporter was one of several locally based journalists allowed to attend.

Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested on May 14 for violating the detention rules, charges that carry a prison term of up to five years. Her trial has aroused growing condemnation from around the world, including rebukes from the White House and a meeting of Asian and European foreign ministers in Hanoi on Tuesday.

Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi has been held under house arrest for 13 of the past 19 years. On Tuesday, the government ended her current six-year term a day before its expiration, in effect transferring her detention to the harsher conditions of Insein prison, where she is being held in a special “guest house.”

“She is free from that detention order, but really she is not free,” said her lawyer, U Nyan Win, speaking by telephone from Yangon, the main city in Myanmar.

“I think if she is convicted — this is my opinion — she can live in this new house,” he said.

Mr. Nyan Win said he was present when the order lifting her house arrest was read to Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi in the morning by a police brigadier general, U Myint Thein, at the prison house.

“I don’t think she is happy because she knows she is not really released,” he said. “She is not free.”

Later, in the courtroom, she testified that the American intruder, John Yettaw, had arrived at her home during the night of May 3 but that she did not learn of his presence until 5 a.m. on May 4, according to wire service reports.

She conceded that she had not informed the authorities and said that she had given him “temporary shelter” until he left on May 5 just before midnight. He was arrested as he was swimming away.

Her lawyers have said she did not report the intrusion or make Mr. Yettaw leave immediately because he complained of cramps and because she did not want him or the security officers who guard her house to get in trouble.

Mr. Yettaw is on trial as well, for immigration violations and for violating municipal sanitation codes by swimming in the lake. He faces up to six years in prison.

Also on trial are two women who keep house for Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi and have been her only companions throughout her most recent six-year term of detention.

“Thank you for your concern and support,” Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi told reporters and diplomats before being escorted from the court, according to The A.P. “It is always good to see people from the outside world.”

It was the second time the reporters and diplomats had been allowed into the trial, which began on May 18.

Most foreign journalists are denied visas to enter Myanmar.

As criticism of the junta has grown, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, has said he will visit Myanmar to call for her release.

In Washington, President Obama said she should be released “immediately and unconditionally.”

“Aung San Suu Kyi’s continued detention, isolation, and show trial based on spurious charges cast serious doubt on the Burmese regime’s willingness to be a responsible member of the international community,” he said in a statement.

At the meeting of foreign ministers in Hanoi, Jan Kohout, the foreign minister of the Czech Republic, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, called Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi “an indispensable partner in the dialogue leading to national reconciliation” in the former Burma.