Suu Kyi ready to stand up for the truth, lawyer says

Yangon: Myanmar's pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi is in good health and ready to defend herself against new charges that have triggered international condemnation of the military regime, her lawyer said.

Kyi Win, Suu Kyi's main defence lawyer at her trial due to start today, was allowed to meet the Nobel Peace laureate for one hour at a guest house in Yangon's Insein Prison on Saturday.

"She asked me to tell her friends and everyone that she is quite well," Kyi Win said. "She is ready to tell the truth that she never broke the law."

The 63-year-old Suu Kyi is charged with breaking the conditions of her nearly six-year house arrest after an American intruder sneaked inside her lakeside villa in Yangon this month.

If convicted, she faces up to five years in jail.

Suu Kyi's two female companions have also been charged in a case denounced by critics as a pretext for keeping the charismatic opposition leader in detention ahead of elections in 2010. Her current detention expires on May 27.

The generals have detained Suu Kyi for more than 13 of the past 19 years, mostly at her home on a leafy Yangon avenue guarded by police, her phone line cut and visitors restricted.

Suu Kyi's doctor, Tin Myo Win, was freed late on Saturday after he was detained on May 7 for questioning, relatives said.

Rights groups also slammed the junta on Saturday for revoking the law licence of Aung Thein, a prominent activist lawyer who was to be on Suu Kyi's defence team.

Kyi Win said Suu Kyi was innocent because she did not invite John Yettaw, who according to state media swam across Yangon's Inya Lake to her home using homemade flippers earlier this month. "She told me that they found him at the back of her house at about 5 am. She told him to leave, but he refused saying he was exhausted," Kyi Win said.

Suu Kyi did not report him to authorities because "she did not want anybody to get into trouble because of her", he said.