Myanmar court agrees to hear Suu Kyi appeal
YANGON |
(Reuters) - Myanmar's Supreme Court will hear a special appeal lodged by detained Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi against her house arrest for a security breach last year, it said in an announcement on Friday.
The appeal by Suu Kyi, the figurehead of Myanmar's fight against military rule, will be heard in the capital Naypyitaw, but no date was set, the court said in an announcement posted on on its notice board.
Suu Kyi is due to be released on Nov. 13, six days after the country's first election in two decades. Myanmar's courts, which usually make rulings favourable to the junta, have rebuffed previous appeals lodged by the former opposition leader.
Speculation has been rife about whether the regime would honour a pledge to release the influential Suu Kyi or find a legal reason to detain her further to ensure a smooth transition for the government that will emerge from the election.
Analysts say it is unlikely Suu Kyi would keep a low profile if released and would attract huge public attention that could spark protests against an election dubbed by critics a sham to appear democratic while cementing military rule.
A failure to free her on Nov. 13, however, could also trigger some form of civil disobedience in a country where the military has shown no qualms about crushing dissent and jailing activists.
A court gave Suu Kyi an 18-month house arrest term in August last year for allowing American intruder John Yettaw to stay at her home. Yettaw claimed God had told him to warn her she would be the target of an assassination plot by "terrorists".
A retired judge, who declined to be identified, said the junta was playing games by hearing the appeal at such a late stage.
"It's just a ploy of the regime -- we can't expect anything out of this," he said.
Suu Kyi, the daughter of the leader of the then Burma's campaign for independence from British rule, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, a year after her party swept Myanmar's last parliamentary election. The military ignored the result.
She has spent 15 of the past 21 years in detention, most of it under house arrest in Yangon.
(reuters)
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