Burma’s detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been charged with violating the terms of her house arrest after an American man swam across a lake to gain access to her compound. Her trial has been set for May 18.
An AFP report says the 53-year-old American, John William Yettaw, is said to be a Mormon and Vietnam War veteran “with a quixotic world view.” The Nobel laureate campaigner’s chief lawyer said, “he is a fool.”
Detained American Visited Suu Kyi Before?
The opposition newspaper Irrawaddy said the American who swam across the lake to Suu Kyi’s house, may have made another secret visit to her last year. A report in the paper, quoting Burma’s state-run newspapers, says:
“Yettaw swam on the night of May 3 to the lakeside home of the 63-year-old Suu Kyi and left the same way on the night of May 5, before being arrested the next morning. The swimming distance between the house and where he was arrested is about 1 1/4 miles (2 kilometers).
“The reports said the man was found with an empty 1.3-gallon (5-liter) plastic water jug-presumably used as a floatation device-as well as a US passport, a flashlight, pliers, a camera, two $100 bills and some local currency.” Click here to read the full report.
He was on a “spiritual quest,” says his family
The Telegraph, UK, quoting the daughter of the American man who swam across the lake to Suu Kyi’s house, says he was already psychologically scarred by the Vietnam war, and “tipped over the edge by his 17-year old son’s death two years ago.”
“He probably thought he would be in and out and no one would know, because that’s what happened before,” said his wife, Betty Yettaw, referring to a previously unknown visit last summer when Mrs Suu Kyi’s maids turned him away without seeing her. More:
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