A court in military-ruled Myanmar was expected Friday to turn aside opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's latest bid for freedom, rejecting her appeal against her latest sentence of house arrest.
Her supporters, however, remained hopeful. "I am very optimistic that our appeal will be accepted and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her two companions acquitted. Our arguments have strong legal points," said her lawyer, Nyan Win.
The Yangon Division court was to rule on the plea that Suu Kyi's conviction in August for breaking the terms of her last period of house arrest was unwarranted. Already in detention for about 14 of the last 20 years, she was sentenced to another 18 months for sheltering an uninvited American at her home for two days in May.
The sentence ensured she cannot participate in elections scheduled for next year, the first since 1990, when her party won but the military did not honour the results.
The American, John Yettaw, has said he wanted to warn Suu Kyi he had a "vision" that she would be assassinated. He was sentenced to seven years in prison but released on humanitarian grounds and deported less than a week after the verdict.
Asked what lawyers plan to do if Suu Kyi's appeal is rejected, Nyan Win said, "We have made all necessary plans for any outcome. We will go up to the Supreme Court if the division court rejects." In the appeal, Suu Kyi's lawyers raised no new substantive arguments that had not been heard in the original district court trial.
Myanmar's courts almost always follow the same hard line toward Suu Kyi and the country's democracy movement, which the military government often accuses of collaborating with the country's enemies to destroy the nation.
But Friday's ruling came amid a tentative change in the political winds, after the United States announced last week it was modifying its tough policy of seeking only to isolate the military regime and would instead try to engage it through high-level talks.
The US will not give up its political and economic sanctions against the regime. It and other Western nations apply sanctions because of Myanmar's poor human rights record and its failure to turn over power to Suu Kyi's party.
US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, the top US diplomat for East Asia, told the Senate Foreign Relations Asia subcommittee Wednesday that lifting sanctions as the administration attempts to start a dialogue, without Myanmar making any democratic changes, would be a mistake.
At the same time, the 64-year-old Suu Kyi has made what appears to be a confidence-building gesture toward the junta, suggesting last week in a letter to leader Senior Gen. Than Shwe she was willing to co-operate with the junta to have the sanctions lifted, according to a statement from her National League for Democracy party.
She had previously welcomed sanctions as a way to pressure the junta to achieve political reconciliation with the pro-democracy movement.
The movement has always insisted on concessions from the government if they are to work together, particularly the freeing of political prisoners and the reopening of party offices around the country.
Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, was convicted on Aug. 11 and sentenced to three years in prison with hard labour after Yettaw secretly swam to her home. The sentence was commuted to 18 months of house arrest by Than Shwe.
Suu Kyi has described the conviction as unfair. Authorities would not let her attend the appeal hearing.
The appeal contended that the law under which she was charged is invalid because it applies to a constitution abolished two decades ago.
