Burma: Suu Kyi Verdict Postponed
Verdict postponed in Suu Kyi trial to allow an appeal against a ruling barring witnesses for the defence to take a stand.Below is an article published by the Financial Times:
The Burmese court trying the case against Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has adjourned the hearing until June 12 [2009] to allow an appeal against a motion that barred some of the witnesses for the defence taking the stand.
The Burmese court trying the case against Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has adjourned the hearing until June 12 [2009] to allow an appeal against a motion that barred some of the witnesses for the defence taking the stand.
Mrs Suu Kyi, 63, could face up to five years in prison if she is convicted of having allowed John Yettaw, an American who swam across the lake behind her house, to stay the night last month.
Mrs Suu Kyi, the most formidable opponent of Burma’s military rulers, was under house arrest at the time and was barred from receiving visitors. Mr Yettaw, who is also on trial, has said that he had had a vision that Mrs Suu Kyi was going to be assassinated by terrorists and had set out uninvited to warn her.
Mr Yettaw and Mrs Suu Kyi’s two companions and housekeepers, Khin Khin Win and her daughter Ma Win Ma Ma, are also on trial.
The court has so far heard from 14 prosecution witnesses, including the police officers who fished Mr Yettaw out of the fetid waters of Lake Inya after he left Mrs Suu Kyi’s home. But the judges barred all but one of the four witnesses the defence had wanted to call.
Mrs Suu Kyi’s legal team have challenged that decision barring Win Tin, a dissident journalist who was Burma’s longest serving prisoner until his release in September 2008]; Tin Oo, the deputy head of Mrs Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, who is also under house arrest; and lawyer Khin Moe Moe.
The one witness they did allow, Kyi Win, a legal expert, argued last week [June 1st to 5th 2009] that although there is little doubt that Mr Yettaw did spend the night at the dilapidated lakeside house, the charges were invalid because they were laid under a law that was part of the country’s 1974 constitution, which has since been superceded.
The lawyers have also argued that Mrs Suu Kyi should not be charged for what appears to be catastrophic lapse in the tight security which normally surrounds her house.
She has spent 13 of the last 19 years under house arrest, and the prospect of her continued detention has provoked widespread international outrage, with President Barack Obama describing the hearings as a “show trial”. Mark Canning, the British ambassador to Burma, echoed many observer’s anger when he said in The Guardian newspaper that “This is surely the only place where the victim of the break-in ends up being charged.”
The Burmese opposition believe that the authorities are using Mr Yettaw’s intrusion as an excuse to keep Mrs Suu Kyi out of circulation at least until after elections due to be held early next year [2010].
The elections, which critics argue will take place under a deeply flawed constitution that will further entrench the power of the military, are necessary to usher in “discipline-flourishing democracy” in the words of the government.
