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YANGON: A US national has been arrested after swimming over to the lakeside compound where Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is under house arrest and hiding there, state media reported on Thursday.
The New Light of Myanmar newspaper said the man, whom it identified as John William Yeattaw, had arrived in Yangon on a tourist visa on May 2.
On the night of May 3, it said, he swam toward Aung San Suu Kyi's compound "and secretly entered the house and stayed there".
"He was found and arrested by the security force while he was swimming back out of the lake" on the night of May 5 "with the help of a five-litre drinking water bottle", the paper added.
It said authorities confiscated his passport and a black haversack, torch, folding pliers, a camera and some US and Myanmar currency notes. An investigation is under way to determine his motive.
Witnesses said that around 20 police officers entered Aung San Suu Kyi's residence on Thursday.
The US embassy said it was trying to find out more.
"We have seen the article this morning," a spokesman said. "We don't have any more information. We are trying to learn more information ourselves."
Aung San Suu Kyi has spent most of the past 19 years under house arrest in Yangon where she lives with her two maids, and she is allowed only occasional visits. The area is normally off limits.
Nyan Win, a spokesman from Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), said the incident exposed security concerns.
"It shows the security weakness at Daw Suu Kyi's compound... we are worried for Daw Suu Kyi's security," he told AFP.
The 63-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate's latest period of incarceration expires at the end of May and authorities have not said yet if they intend to extend her sentence.
The NLD won a landslide victory in elections in 1990, but the military, which has ruled the impoverished country with an iron rod since 1962, never allowed it to take office.
- AFP/so
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