Suu Kyi says not guilty of violating house arrest

Yangon: Myanmar's jailed democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi insists she is not guilty of violating her house arrest, her lawyer said Friday, as a clearer picture emerged of the American who swam to her home and kicked off the junta's latest crackdown.

Ahead of Suu Kyi's trial Monday, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate spent the night at the country's notorious Insein Prison where she is being held in a "guest house" within the compound during her trial proceedings, said her lawyer Kyi Win.

Worldwide condemnation has poured in since Suu Kyi was charged Thursday with breaking the terms of her yearslong detention, just two weeks before she was due to be released. Her trial was scheduled to be held at a special court at the prison, which has held numerous political prisoners over the years.

World leaders, human rights groups and fellow Nobel laureates denounced the move as an attempt by the military junta to silence its chief opponent ahead of next year's election _ which will be the first since Suu Kyi's party won elections in 1990 that the junta refused to recognize.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the charges and called for Suu Kyi's immediate release.

"If the 2010 elections are to have any semblance of credibility, she and all political prisoners must be freed to participate," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said.

The Singapore government said it "is dismayed" by the charges against Suu Kyi, one of the few criticisms to come from Myanmar's neighbors in Southeast Asia, who abide by a much-criticized policy of not interfering in each others affairs.

The charges follow a mysterious visit to her home by John William Yettaw, 53, an American who swam across a lake and sneaked into her home seeking food and a place to rest.

It was the second time Yettaw had made the trip after swimming across the lake last summer, but on that visit the house staff kept him from speaking to Suu Kyi, his wife, Betty Yettaw told reporters in an interview outside her home near Camdenton in southern Missouri.