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The United States on Thursday renewed its call for Myanmar's military regime to free democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi on the eve of a verdict in which she could receive five years in prison.
"We believe that she should be immediately and unconditionally released, along with the 2,100 other political prisoners in Burma," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said, using Myanmar's former name.
Kelly said that a US embassy consular officer was present during her trial, in which a US citizen is also facing prison over a bizarre incident in which he swam to Aung San Suu Kyi's lakeside home.
Myanmar prosecutors charge that Aung San Suu Kyi broke the terms of her house arrest by sheltering the American man, John Yettaw, who said he was trying to tell the Nobel Peace laureate of his vision that she would be assassinated.
Critics say the trial is a ploy by the regime to keep Aung San Suu Kyi locked up until after elections scheduled for 2010. She has already spent almost 14 of the last 20 years in detention.
