Yangon, trial against Aung San Suu Kyi adjourned to June 26th

The hearing, due to have taken place today, was postponed to allow the defence gather more witnesses. The Court had only allowed one witness on the women’s behalf; lawyers for the Noble Peace prize winner ask that four people’s testimony is heard.

Yangon (AsiaNews/Agencies) – The trial against Aung San Suu Kyi, Leader of the opposition party’s National League for Democracy (Nld), has been postponed until June 26th. Burmese sources speaking anonymously confirm that the delay is to allow for “more defence witnesses to be called”.

63 year old Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of national hero Aung San, is on trial for having violated the terms of her house arrest by having allowed an American citizen in her home on University Road a Yangon, Lake Inya. The closing arguments were to have been given on June 1st; the authorities than delayed them until today.

The Nobel laureate has consistently denied charges against her and has underlined that she hosted John Yettaw out of humanitarian concern attributing to the security forces the “gap in the security system” that allowed the 5 year old US citizen enter “the most closely guarded house in Myanmar”. If she is found guilty the woman faces five years in prison.

Initially the court had allowed the testimony of one single witness for the defence out of the four put forward by the woman’s lawyers, all NLD members; the prosecution called 14 people to testify against the opposition leader.

This week Burmese sources had predicted that Aung San Suu Kyi – who has spent 13 of the last 10 years under house arrest – will be condemned to another 5 years of house arrest. The military junta that has held power in Myanmar since 1962, wants to incriminate her to prevent her participating in the next elections due to be held in 2010.