Myanmar court grants Suu Kyi 1 more witness

YANGON, Myanmar — A Myanmar court ruled Tuesday that pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi will be allowed to have one more defense witness — not three as requested by her lawyers — at a trial that has sparked global outrage.

The Yangon Divisional Court reversed a decision by the lower court judges presiding over Suu Kyi’s trial to disqualify three defense witnesses, leaving her defense team with just one.

The higher court’s ruling means that two senior member of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy will still be barred from giving testimony. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate is on trial on charges of breaking the terms of her house arrest.

Suu Kyi’s lawyers immediately said they planned to appeal the decision.

“The court has only partly accepted our appeal,” said defense attorney Nyan Win, who said Suu Kyi’s legal team planned to appeal to the High Court later this week to seek the reinstatement of the other two witnesses.

It was not clear if an appeal would delay closing arguments, which were scheduled to begin on Friday, or if it would be permitted.

It is widely expected that the 63-year-old Nobel laureate will be found guilty of violating the terms of her house arrest because an uninvited American man swam secretly to her closely guarded lakeside home last month and stayed two days. Suu Kyi has been detained without trial for more than 13 of the past 19 years, including the past six.

The trial has drawn outrage from the international community and Suu Kyi’s local supporters, who say the military junta is using the bizarre case of the American swimmer as an excuse to keep Suu Kyi detained through next year’s elections. Her party won the last elections in 1990 but was not allowed to take power by the military, which has run the country since 1962.

The mostly closed-door trial, which started May 18, is taking place inside Insein Prison, home to many of the junta’s political prisoners.

Security was tightened outside the Divisional Court ahead of the ruling. Truckloads of riot police were stationed near the court, where a group of pro-junta supporters gathered outside. Anti-government protests are illegal in Myanmar.

Suu Kyi’s defense team had argued that Suu Kyi was legally entitled to have more witnesses, particularly in such an important case, Nyan Win said ahead of Tuesday’s ruling. He said the decision to bar all but one witness was “not in accord with the law.”

The three witnesses rejected by the lower court were all members of the National League for Democracy party, although the two who remained disqualified are more senior. Tuesday’s ruling reinstated the lawyer Khin Moe Moe as a witness, but maintained the disqualification of prominent journalist and former political prisoner Win Tin, and the party’s vice chairman Tin Oo, currently under house arrest.

Nyan Win said he believed the court did not accept Win Tin and Tin Oo because “These two persons are very senior members of the party and these people can give statements with political essence.”

The court had approved 23 prosecution witnesses, of whom 14 took the stand, according to Suu Kyi’s lawyers.

The defense has not contested the basic facts of the case but argues that the relevant law has been misapplied by the authorities. They also assert that any intrusion was the responsibility of the security forces guarding the house.

Two women members of Suu Kyi’s party who are her sole companions in house arrest and the American, John Yettaw, are being tried with her on the same charge.