From Bangkok Post

US man swims lake to meet Suu Kyi
By: AFP
Published: 8/05/2009 at 03:06 AM Rangoon - Burmese authorities have arrested an American who swam across a lake to meet opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and stayed 48 hours in her off-limits compound where she is under house arrest, officials said.

State media said the man, identified as John Willian Yeattaw, spent two days at the house in the main city of Rangoon before security forces plucked him from the water as he left at dawn on Wednesday.

The man confessed that he had arrived in Rangoon on a tourist visa on May 2, then swam to the compound the following night "and secretly entered the house and stayed there", the New Light of Myanmar newspaper said.

Burmese official sources speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed the account and said that the man had succeeded in meeting Mrs Suu Kyi during his time at the house.

He then left late on May 5 and "was found and arrested by the security force while he was swimming back out of the lake" at about 5:30am on Wednesday "with the help of a five-litre drinking water bottle", the paper added.

It said authorities confiscated his passport and a black haversack, torch, folding pliers, a camera, two US $100 bills and some Burmese currency notes.

An investigation was under way to determine the motive of the man, who is aged 53 and was a United States national, officials said, giving no further details of the incident.

Witnesses said more than 30 police officers entered Mrs Suu Kyi's residence after the story broke on Thursday and security forces blocked off the roads leading to her house.

The US embassy said it was trying to find out more.

"We have seen the article this morning," a spokesman said. "We don't have any more information. We are trying to learn more information ourselves."

The incident would be the first time that anyone has sneaked into Mrs Suu Kyi's family compound, which is normally off-limits.

Mrs Suu Kyi has spent most of the past 19 years under house arrest in Rangoon, where she lives with her two maids, and she is allowed only occasional visits from her doctor and lawyer.

Nyan Win, a spokesman from Mrs Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), said the incident exposed security concerns.

"It shows the security weakness at Daw Suu Kyi's compound... we are worried for Daw Suu Kyi's security," he said.

He was unable to confirm whether the US national had met Mrs Suu Kyi, saying that he only had the local newspaper reports to go on.

Mrs Suu Kyi's doctor visited the house later on Thursday to carry out her regular medical check-up but it was unclear if he had been able to visit her, Nyan Win said.

Official sources said the doctor waited for several hours but was eventually denied permission to enter.

The 63-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate's latest period of incarceration expires at the end of May and authorities have not said yet if they intend to extend her sentence.

Her party said on Tuesday the government had rejected a separate legal appeal against her detention.

The appeal was lodged last year after Mrs Suu Kyi was given an intravenous drip by her doctor after refusing food deliveries for a month.

The NLD won a landslide victory in elections in 1990 but the military, which has ruled the impoverished country with an iron rod since 1962, never allowed it to take office.