Suu Kyi faces five more years of jail

A wave of international outrage can be expected following the news from Burma that the pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been charged today with breaching the terms of her house arrest. Worse, the 63-year-old politician faces a further five years imprisonment - possibly in jail, rather than under house arrest - if she is found guilty at her trial next Monday.

She was taken from her lakeside compound to the Insein prison from where a spokesman for her party, the National League for Democracy, said: "This is a political issue, not a criminal case. She did not do anything wrong."

The trumped up charge relates to the bizarre incident reported last week when an American man swam across Lake Inya and entered Suu Kyi's compound - where she has been under house arrest for the best part of the 19 years - and stayed two nights before swimming back across the lake.

John William Yettaw was arrested on May 6 and has been held in detention ever since. An American consular official finally visited him yesterday and confirmed that Yettaw was in good spirits and had not yet been charged with any crime. But he offered no explanation for Yettaw's behaviour.

According to Suu Kyi's supporters and lawyers, Yettaw was an univited guest who appears to have given the Burmese junta just the excuse it needed to extend Suu Kyi's detention. Citizens are not allowed to have overnight visitors who are not family members: and anyway Suu Kyi's compound is strictly off limits.

Whatever Yettaw's motive, Burma's state-run newspapers reported last week that the 53-year-old from Falcon, Missouri swam two kilometres across the lake on the night of May 3 to reach Suu Kyi's home, and left the same way on May 5.

Suu Kyi has been under almost permanent house arrest since 1990 when the NLD won the general election but was banned by the junta from assuming office. Her latest period of detention was due to expire at the end of this month. Burma-watchers were expecting the authorities to find a reason to extend her detention, and it seems Yettaw has unwittingly provided it.

Only last week, an NLD spokesman, Nyan Win, said the party was worried about Suu Kyi's health. She had suffered a loss of appetite and had gone three to four days without eating. As a result, her blood pressure was low and she was showing symptoms of dehydration. On Thursday, her doctor, Tin Myo Win, was suddenly arrested. No one knows why.