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Burma court ruling keeps Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest
Agence France Presse - February 26, 2010
Aung San Suu Kyi will remain under house arrest after Burma's Supreme Court rejected an appeal against her extended detention.
The 64-year-old opposition leader had her incarceration lengthened by 18 months in August after being convicted over a bizarre incident in which an American man swam to her lakeside home.
A lower court rejected an initial appeal in October, keeping her in detention ahead of promised elections later this year.
"The appeal was rejected," a Burmese official said on condition of anonymity, adding that the appeals of Suu Kyi's two female assistants against similar periods of detention were also thrown out.
Foreign ambassadors including the British, French and Australian envoys went to the court in the former capital Rangoon to hear the verdict, witnesses said.
Nobel Peace laureate Suu Kyi can now make a final appeal to Burma's chief justice – an option her lawyers said they would pursue.
Suu Kyi has already spent 14 of the last 20 years in jail or under house arrest since the country's last elections in 1990, which her National League for Democracy won by a landslide. Burmas's ruling junta then prevented the party from taking power.
"If they reject it, there is a special appeal... We will go for it again," Suu Kyi's lawyer and NLD spokesman Nyan Win told AFP as he was on his way to court for the ruling.
Suu Kyi has previously dismissed comments by Home Affairs Minister Maung Oo, who reportedly said she would be released in November, as "unfair" ahead of any court decision.
Junta chief Than Shwe has promised to hold elections at some point this year under his "roadmap to democracy" but has refused so far to set a date and critics say the polls are aimed at simply entrenching the generals' power.
Suu Kyi is effectively barred from standing in the promised vote and a quarter of the parliamentary seats up for grabs are reserved for the military.
She has said it is too early for her party to decide whether to participate in the elections while freedom of expression remains elusive.
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