Burmese dissident denies violation
Suu Kyi says she only gave intruder 'temporary shelter'
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - Taking the stand for the first time in her trial, Burma's prodemocracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi denied yesterday 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.
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.
Suu Kyi was arrested on May 14 and pleaded not guilty on Friday to 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 from a meeting of Asian and European foreign ministers in Hanoi yesterday.
Suu Kyi has been held under house arrest for 13 of the past 19 years. Yesterday, 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 from Rangoon, the main city in Burma.
"I think if she is convicted - this is my opinion - she can live in this new house," he said.
Nyan Win said he was present when the order lifting her house arrest was read to 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 at about 5 a.m. on May 4 but that she did not immediately know of his presence, according to wire service reports.
She conceded that she had not informed authorities and said that she had given Yettaw "temporary shelter" until he left just before midnight that night. He was arrested as he was swimming away.
Her lawyers have said she did not report the intrusion or make 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 into trouble.
Yettaw is on trial as well, for immigration violations and for violating municipal sanitation codes by swimming in the lake. If convicted, he faces up to six years in prison. Also on trial are two women who keep house for Suu Kyi and have been her only companions throughout her most recent six-year term of detention.
As criticism of the junta has grown, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, has said he would visit Burma to call for her release.
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 Suu Kyi "an indispensable partner in the dialogue leading to national reconciliation" in Burma.
"She should be released immediately and the Burmese government should engage in an inclusive dialogue with all relevant political and ethnic groups," he said.
In London, a group of former leaders and Nobel Peace prize laureates known as the Elders also called for her release.
One of them, former US President Jimmy Carter, said, "Aung San Suu Kyi is a hero for those who believe in human rights and dignity." 