Myanmar's Suu Kyi allowed rare visit by lawyer

Detained Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has met with her lawyer for the first time in five years, one of her colleagues said Sunday.

Nyan Win, a spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, said she consulted her lawyer about the detention law under which she has been confined without trial for more than 12 of the past 19 years. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has been detained continuously since May 2003, most of the time under house arrest.

Nyan Win quoted the lawyer as saying that Suu Kyi appeared to be in very good health when they met Friday. She was last seen by her doctor in May.

Her house arrest was extended by one year in May, even though the action seemed to defy a law that stipulates that no one can be held longer than five years without being released or put on trial.

But a commentary in June in the state-owned New Light of Myanmar newspaper, which closely reflects government opinion, said detentions are permissible for as long as six years under a 1975 "Law Safeguarding the State from Dangers of Subversive Elements."

The conditions under which the meeting with lawyer Kyi Win was arranged were unclear, since Suu Kyi is allowed virtually no contact with outsiders, aside from occasional meetings with fellow party executives. Late last year, however, the military government appointed a Cabinet-level official to serve as a liaison for her contacts with the outside.

The National League for Democracy has sought to challenge the extension of Suu Kyi's detention, but the government refuses to accept the appeal.

Her party told a U.N. envoy visiting Myanmar earlier this month that the junta's decision to keep her under house arrest for a sixth year violates her human rights.

Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962. The current junta came to power in 1988 after crushing a nationwide pro-democracy uprising, killing as many as 3,000 people. It called elections in 1990 but refused to honor the results after Suu Kyi's party won overwhelmingly.