YANGON: Myanmar police set up barbed wire barricades on Monday around a notorious prison where democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi was set to stand trial on charges that she sheltered a US man who swam to her home.
Police in riot gear and plainclothes security men blocked off all roads leading to the jail near Yangon, while several dozen sympathisers stood at the cordon to show support for the Nobel Peace Prize winner.
The 63-year-old faces up to five years in jail and could be barred from standing in elections next year if convicted of violating her house arrest at the trial, which has been condemned by the international community.
Her lawyer said she would protest her innocence at the hearing to be held behind closed doors inside the sprawling jail compound where Aung San Suu Kyi has been kept since Thursday.
"Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has studied the section of the law under which she was charged and says that she didn't commit any crime," lawyer Kyi Win told AFP. Daw is a term of respect in the Burmese language.
He said that the blame lay with John Yettaw, an eccentric American who crossed a lake to reach her home earlier this month and then spent two nights there, leading to the charges against Aung San Suu Kyi.
"She just felt sorry for this man as he had leg cramps after he swam across the lake. That's why she allowed him to stay," Kyi Win said.
He said Yettaw had also come to the house in 2008, but that the two political assistants who live with Aung San Suu Kyi had asked him to go back, adding that her doctor had informed authorities about the earlier visit at the time.
Aung San Suu Kyi, Yettaw and the two assistants – who have formerly been described as maids – would all appear in court on Monday for the opening of the trial, Kyi Win said.
It was not immediately known how long the trial would take.
Aung San Suu Kyi has spent most of the last 19 years in detention since the junta, headed by reclusive Senior General Than Shwe, refused to let her take power after her party won Myanmar's last democratic elections in 1990.
Her latest six-year period of detention was due to expire on May 27, but
Yettaw's visit has apparently provided the junta with the ammunition it needs to extend her detention past the elections scheduled for 2010.
Critics say the polls are a sham that the junta hopes to use to gain legitimacy, erase the results of the 1990 polls won by her National League for Democracy party and consolidate the military's grip on power.
Under a constitution forced through last year, Aung San Suu Kyi is already barred from becoming president after the elections as she had children with her British husband Michael Aris, an academic who died in 1999.
The constitution also bars those convicted of criminal offences from standing in elections.
But analysts say the junta's determination to keep her locked up shows that they still perceive the soft-spoken activist as a major threat to their iron rule over Myanmar, which has been controlled by the military since 1962.
Several protests were planned in major Asian cities including Bangkok and Hong Kong in support of Aung San Suu Kyi.
US President Barack Obama formally extended sanctions against Myanmar on Friday, despite an official US review of policy on the country, which is also known as Burma.
There has however been no official statement from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, of which Myanmar is a member, although Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines have issued separate condemnations.
China, one of Myanmar's closest backers, and India have also remained silent while, among other Asian powers, Japan has called for Aung San Suu Kyi's release.
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