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YANGON : The trial of Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi entered its final stage on Friday as her lawyers delivered closing arguments in a bid to save her from five years in jail, her party said.
The detained Nobel Peace laureate, 64, faces charges of breaching the terms of her house arrest over a bizarre incident in which an American man swam uninvited to her lakeside home.
The trial resumed on Friday following weeks of delays and fierce international condemnation, with critics saying the ruling military was using the charges as an excuse to keep Suu Kyi locked up for elections next year.
Nyan Win, one of her lawyers and a spokesman for her National League for Democracy, said the defence team had started giving closing statements to the court at the feared Insein jail but would return on Monday.
"We haven't finished our final arguments today so there will be another hearing on July 27," Nyan Win told AFP.
Myanmar officials speaking on condition of anonymity said the prosecution may also give its final statements on the same day, although it was still unclear when a verdict was likely in the case, which began in May.
Security was extremely tight near the jail, witnesses said, with more than 10 police trucks and armed officers manning a barricade by the gates where about 40 NLD supporters had gathered.
Diplomats from the embassies of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Norway were permitted to attend the hearing although most of the trial at the feared Insein prison has been held behind closed doors, officials said.
Suu Kyi's lawyers had been expected to argue that she could not be held responsible for the night-time swim by American John Yettaw and that she had been charged under a constitution that expired more than two decades ago.
They were expected to speak later Friday.
The prosecution has said that she harboured Yettaw, who is also facing trial along with two female assistants to Suu Kyi, and failed to report his presence to authorities.
Her trial began just days before the latest period of her house arrest was due to expire, having spent most of the last two decades in detention since the military refused to recognise her party's victory in elections in 1990.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visited Myanmar earlier this month but military leader Than Shwe did not allow him to meet the opposition icon, citing the fact that she was on trial.
Foreign ministers attending Asia's biggest security conference in Thailand this week urged the military to release Suu Kyi, with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dangling the carrot of future business ties.
But state mouthpiece the New Light of Myanmar rejected the comments as "interference".
"Demanding release of Daw Suu Kyi means showing reckless disregard for the law," said an editorial in the English-language newspaper.
"The court will hand down a reasonable term to her if she is found guilty, and it will release her if she is found not guilty," it insisted.
The New Light piece also defended elections promised for some time next year after criticism that they would not be credible if political prisoners, including Suu Kyi, were not released and permitted to stand.
- AFP /ls
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