Myanmar bars lawyer from Aung San Suu Kyi trial
Posted: 17 May 2009 0033 hrs

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YANGON : A Myanmar lawyer who applied to represent opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi at her trial next week said Saturday he had been disbarred by the country's ruling military.

Aung Thein said he had received a letter from the authorities on Friday saying he was dismissed from the Myanmar lawyers association because of an earlier sentence for contempt of court.

"The dismissal letter from Naypyidaw (the administrative capital) was sent to me last night. I had been sentenced for four months because of contempt of court, that's why they dismissed me," Aung Thein told AFP.

Aung Thein, who is part of the legal team for Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, said he had attended the notorious Insein prison on Thursday to seek to represent the 63-year-old.

The Nobel Peace Prize winning Aung San Suu Kyi was charged by a court at the jail on Thursday for breaching the terms of her house arrest after a US man swam to her lakeside compound earlier this month.

She faces up to five years in jail if convicted at the trial which starts on Monday. Rights groups say the charges have been "trumped up" to extend her current six-year period of detention past elections due next year.

"I feel really sorry for her that I cannot stand with her strongly (in court)," Aung Thein said.

Aung San Suu Kyi has spent most of the last 19 years detained at her house in Yangon, kept in virtual isolation and only allowed visits from her doctors and lawyers.

Myanmar has faced intense international pressure to drop the charges and free Aung San Suu Kyi, whose party won the country's last elections in 1990 but were prevented from taking power by the ruling generals.

US President Barack Obama on Friday formally extended American sanctions against Myanmar, despite an official US review of policy on Myanmar, also known as Burma.

"I have determined that it is necessary to continue the national emergency with respect to Burma and maintain in force the sanctions against Burma to respond to this threat," Obama said in a message to Congress.

- AFP /ls