Saturday, June 27, 2009

Court adjourns Suu Kyi's trial to July 3

New Delhi (mizzima) - The special court in Insein Prison on Friday adjourned the hearing of the testimony of a second defense witness in the trial against opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to July 3rd, as the country’s High Court has yet to rule on an appeal to allow the remaining two defense witnesses.

Nyan Win, a member of Aung San Suu Kyi’s legal team, said the court on Friday convened at about 10 a.m. (local time) and adjourned about thirty minutes later with the judge scheduling the testimony of Khin Moh Moh, the second defense witness, for July 3rd.

“Since the decision from the High Court has not yet been announced, the lower court cannot go ahead with the case,” Nyan Win iterated.

Earlier in the week, the High Court heard arguments by defense lawyers to allow the remaining two defense witnesses – Tin Oo, Vice-Chairman of the National League for Democracy (NLD), and Win Tin, a veteran journalist and Central Executive Committee member of the NLD – to take the stand.

On Thursday, Burma’s Chief of Police, Khin Yi, told journalists and diplomats at a rare news conference in Rangoon that Aung San Suu Kyi is responsible for the secret visit by the American man, John William Yettaw, as she failed to immediately report the incident to the authorities concerned.

Khin Yi accused the detained Nobel Peace Laureate of delaying notification of Yettaw's initial visit at the end of 2008 by four days, putting authorities in a difficult situation to trace the case.

He added he suspects a mastermind behind Yettaw’s visit to the Burmese democracy icon’s house on the shores of Inya Lake in Rangoon, and that authorities are still trying to find out which group is responsible for the breech in security.

But opposition groups, including the NLD, have accused the junta of using the incident as a pretext to continue detaining Aung San Suu Kyi in order to remove her from the public realm prior to and during their planned election in 2010.

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