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Burmese Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Aung San Suu Kyi Appeal


Burma's detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi (file photo)
Burma's detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi (file photo)

Lawyers for jailed Burmese democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi say the country's Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal against her house arrest.

The lawyers said Thursday a special panel of judges will hear the appeal in the capital of Naypyitaw, but did not announce a date.

The lawyers acknowledged the court may not decide the case before Aung San Suu Kyi's scheduled release date on November 13. But they said they will go ahead anyway to try to prove her innocence.

The opposition leader was convicted last year of violating the terms of her house arrest by allowing an American man to stay at her lakeside Rangoon house after he swam there uninvited.

She was sentenced to three years of hard labor, but that was commuted by regime leader General Than Shwe to an 18-month extension of her house arrest.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner is to be released just days after the country's first parliamentary election in two decades.

Her National League for Democracy won the 1990 election in a landslide, but the military junta refused to accept the results.

Some information for this report was provided by AP and AFP.

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