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YANGON: Myanmar's supreme court on Monday rejected an appeal to reinstate two defence witnesses at the internationally condemned trial of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, an official said.
The Nobel laureate faces up to five years in jail on charges of violating the terms of her house arrest after an American man swam uninvited to her lakeside home and has been held at a notorious jail in Yangon since May.
The supreme court upheld a decision by the trial court at Insein prison last month to bar two out of four defence witnesses, both senior members of her National League for Democracy (NLD).
"The appeal (by her defence team) was rejected. The decision was posted on the board of the supreme court," a Myanmar official said on condition of anonymity.
The two barred witnesses are Win Tin, a journalist who was Myanmar's longest-serving political prisoner until his release in September, and detained deputy NLD leader Tin Oo.
Nyan Win, one of Aung San Suu Kyi's lawyers and the spokesman for the NLD, said on Monday he could not confirm the appeal rejection yet.
"I cannot say anything right now about how we will continue as I have to have discussions with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi," he added.
One defence witness, a legal expert, has already testified. Aung San Suu Kyi's lawyers earlier this month successfully appealed against a ban on a second witness. The next hearing in the trial is on July 3.
The prosecution has so far called 14 witnesses, adding to opposition and international claims that the proceedings are a show trial designed to keep the democracy icon locked up ahead of elections scheduled by the regime for 2010.
Aung San Suu Kyi has spent 13 of the last 19 years in detention since Myanmar's ruling military government refused to recognise the NLD's landslide victory in the country's last democratic polls in 1990.
- AFP/so
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