Yangon  - A Myanmar court on Tuesday invited journalists and foreign diplomats to hear its verdicts on opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, her two house aides and a US national on charges of violating Suu Kyi's terms of detention three months ago.

Myanmar journalists representing foreign media were invited to attend the court session at the last moment. Foreign diplomats were also in attendance, raising hopes that the court would be lenient.

If found guilty, Suu Kyi could face up to five years in jail, although the court may hand down a lighter sentence that would simply keep her out of the political picture until Myanmar's junta can hold a general election next year, sources said.

The special court set up at Yangon's notorious Insein Prison was originally scheduled to deliver its verdict on July 31 but postponed the decision until Tuesday, citing "legal problems."

Myanmar's military regime has been widely condemned for bringing fresh charges against Suu Kyi, who has already spent 14 of the past 20 years in detention.

American national John William Yettaw, 53, could be sentenced to several months in jail for swimming, uninvited, to Suu Kyi's home-cum-prison on the edge of Inya Lake on May 3 and staying there until May 5, deemed a breach of the opposition leader's detention terms.

Yettaw, a Mormon, was last week hospitalized at Yangon General Hospital with epilepsy. On Monday night he was returned to Insein Prison, hospital sources confirmed.

If sentenced to jail, Yettaw is likely to be pardoned and swiftly deported, sources said.

Authorities have reportedly granted a visa to US Senator Jim Webb, chairman of the Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, to visit Myanmar later this week.

Sources in Washington said Webb will ask the regime to release Yettaw on humanitarian grounds.

Suu Kyi's case poses more of a problem for the regime.

Her most recent detention term expired on May 27, when she had already been shifted to Insein Prison to stand trial on fresh charges.

Her trial has prompted widespread criticism by the governments of Western democracies and even Myanmar's close allies in the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

US President Barack Obama has called it a "show trial," and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who visited Myanmar last month, has warned that a failure to free Suu Kyi and other political prisoners would undermine the credibility of Myanmar's planned general election in 2010.

But Myanmar's military leaders reportedly fear that a free Suu Kyi could unduly influence the outcome of their planned polls.

"They cannot afford to have her free during the election time," said Win Min, a lecturer on Myanmar affairs at Chiang Mai University in northern Thailand.

Suu Kyi leads the National League for Democracy party that won the last Myanmar election in 1990 by a landslide even though she was under house arrest at the time of the polls. The party has been barred from power ever since. (dpa)