Burmese Activist's Trial May End Monday

BANGKOK, May 28 -- Attorneys for Aung San Suu Kyi, the detained Burmese opposition leader, said Thursday that they expect to make their closing arguments in her trial Monday and that the verdict would probably be announced shortly afterward.

On Thursday, Kyi Win, the only defense witness proposed by Suu Kyi's legal team whom the court allowed to take the stand, argued that the charges against Suu Kyi had been mistakenly applied.

Suu Kyi is charged with breaking the terms of her house arrest by allowing an uninvited American visitor, John W. Yettaw, to stay the night without reporting him to the authorities. Yettaw used a pair of homemade flippers to swim to her lakeside house this month.

Suu Kyi, 63, is being tried at Rangoon's Insein Prison. The charges against her carry a maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment.

She has told the court that she gave Yettaw "temporary shelter" because he was exhausted and hungry after the swim and because she did not want to create trouble for him or the security detail that is supposed to guard her house.

Yettaw, 53, of Falcon, Mo., is also on trial on charges of breaking immigration and national security laws.

"He said the reason he came was in his vision he saw that Aung San Suu Kyi was assassinated by terrorists. Because of his vision, he came here to warn Aung San Suu Kyi and also the government," said Nyan Win, a member of Suu Kyi's legal team.

If he is convicted, Yettaw could be sentenced to up to seven years in prison.

The proceedings have drawn condemnation from around the world. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, an influential regional grouping of which Burma is a member, voiced rare concern about the proceedings, provoking a sharp response from Burmese authorities.

"It is not political. It is not a human rights issue. So we don't accept pressure and interference from abroad," Maung Mynt, Burma's deputy foreign minister, said at a meeting of Asian and European foreign ministers in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital.

Diplomats have said that even China, Burma's biggest trading partner and most influential ally, is privately displeased with the government's decision to put Suu Kyi on trial.