Suu Kyi's health improves, ready for verdict

By Aung Hla Tun

YANGON, May 30 (Reuters) - Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's health has improved and she is ready to face a verdict that could see the Nobel laureate jailed for up to five years, her lawyers said on Saturday.

Suu Kyi, whose trial on charges of violating her house arrest will hear final arguments on Friday, was feeling better after she complained of leg cramps and a lack of sleep, Nyan Win, one of her lawyers, said.

The National League for Democracy (NLD) said on Friday it was "gravely concerned" for its leader's health and demanded urgent care for the 63-year-old, who has been held at a guest house in Yangon's Insein central prison since May 14.

Prison doctors visited Suu Kyi and recommended that she stop taking two medicines, said Nyan Win.

"She now can sleep well," he said after her defence team was allowed to meet her for two hours on Saturday.

"She didn't say what she expects the verdict to be. She is ready to face whatever happens."

Suu Kyi may be jailed for three to five years if found guilty of breaking the terms of her house arrest by allowing an American intruder to stay for two days after he swam to her home on May 4.

She has spent more than 13 of the past 19 years in some form of detention, much of it a virtual prisoner inside her home on Yangon's Inya Lake. Activists fear for her health if she is convicted, as is widely expected.

The West has condemned the "show trial" as a ploy to keep the charismatic opposition leader detained during the military government's promised elections next year.



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In Singapore, U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates repeated Washington's call for the release of Suu Kyi and more than 2,000 other political prisoners in the former Burma, where the military has ruled for nearly half a century.

Speaking at an Asian defence conference, he called Myanmar "one of the isolated, desolate exceptions to the growing prosperity and freedom of the region".

"We saw Burma's resistance to accept basic humanitarian aid last year following Cyclone Nargis -- a decision indicative of that country's approach to the rest of the world," he said.

Myanmar's Southeast Asian neighbours have also called for Suu Kyi's release and said the trial threatened the military's government's "honour and credibility".

The regime fired back on Thursday, accusing its critics of meddling in an "internal legal issue", and denying the prosecution of Suu Kyi was a political or human rights issue.

Final arguments in the case had been expected on Monday, but the prison court informed Suu Kyi's lawyers on Friday that the trial would resume on June 5. It gave no reason for the change.

The American intruder, John Yettaw, has told the court that God sent him to warn Suu Kyi that she was going to be assassinated by "terrorists".

Suu Kyi has denied any prior knowledge of his plans and blamed the incident on a security breach, for which no officials have been punished.

She is accused of violating her house arrest under Section 22 of a security law protecting the state from "subversive elements". Her lawyers argue that section is no longer valid because it is based on the 1974 constitution abolished years ago.

Suu Kyi's two female housemates and Yettaw are charged under the same security law. The American is also accused of immigration violations and breaking a municipal law against swimming in Inya Lake. (Writing by Darren Schuettler; Editing by Richard Meares)