A Burmese court yesterday rejected an appeal by prodemocracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi against her extended house arrest, just days after the US reengaged with the country's ruling junta.
Judges at a divisional court in Rangoon upheld the Nobel Laureate's conviction, her lawyer said, over an indicent in which an American man swam uninvited to her home, earning her an extra 18 months in detention.
"The appeal was rejected but we will take it to the high court," said Suu Kyi's lawyer and the spokesman for the National League for Democracy party, Nyan Win, after the hearing.
Asked whether he was disappointed, the lawyer said Suu Kyi might have a better chance at Burma's high court.
He said the defence team was seeking permission from the authorities to visit the frail 64-year-old as soon as possible, to inform her of the ruling and discuss a further appeal, which must be filed within the next 60 days. Suu Kyi - who has spent much of the last 20 years in detention - was not present for the verdict, which was delivered amid tight security with uniformed and plain-clothes policemen patrolling the area.
Her extender house arrest will keep he off the scene for elections promised by the regime for 2010, adding to widespread criticism that the polls are a sham designed to legitimise the junta's grip on power.
John Yettaw, an eccentric American who striggered the debacle by swimming to Suu Kyi's lakeside mansion in May, was sentenced to seven years' hard labour in August, but the regime freed him after a visit by US Senator Jim Webb.
Meanwhile, China and other allies of the junta have joined an international call for the release of Suu Kyi.
The UN Human Rights Council's 47 members unani-mously adopted a resolution yesterday in Geneva to demand that Burma release all political prisoners and allow them to take part in next year's elections.
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