Lawyers optimistic about Suu Kyi's release

Yangon (Myanmar), Sep 18(ANI): Lawyers of detained Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi have said that they have firm arguments in the appeal that they have filed against her criminal conviction.

"We are optimistic that Daw Suu and her two companions will be released because we based our appeal on sound legal points," The Daily Express quoted Nyan Win, Suu Kyi's lawyer, as saying.

Earlier, Suu Kyi's lawyers had submitted an appeal against the conviction to the Divisional Court in Yangon.

A Myanmar court had sentenced Aung San Suu Kyi to a three year jail term with hard labour for violating terms of her house arrest, when an American citizen John Yettaw swam to her lakeside home in May and stayed there uninvited for two day when she was under dentention.

The sentence was later reduced to 18 months under house arrest, but it would still keep her off the political stage and elections that the military government has set for next year, the paper reports.

The appeal filed by Suu Kyi's lawyers argues that the law cited by authorities is invalid, as it applies to a constitution abolished two decades ago.

The American, Yettaw, was sentenced to seven years in prison, but was released on humanitarian grounds and deported on August 16.

Suu Kyi, who sacrificed her prosperous days in England to take up the crusade for democracy in her home country, Myanmar, and later imprisoned by the military regime, has become the world"s most famous political prisoners, and an icon for the struggle of democracy.

Suu Kyi has been detained for more than 13 of the last 19 years. (ANI)