Yangon  - A special court at Yangon's notorious Insein Prison on Friday began reading the verdicts against opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, her two housekeepers and a US national who stand charged of violating Suu Kyi's terms of house arrest, sources said.

Witnesses saw 16 foreign diplomats, including representatives from the US, British and German embassies, enter the prison shortly before 10 am (0330 GMT) to attend the final day of the controversial trial, which has been closed to the local press.

Suu Kyi, 64, stands accused of breaking the terms of her house detention by allowing US national John William Yettaw to swim to her home-cum-prison on May 3 and stay, albeit uninvited, in her compound until the night of May 5.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who has spent 14 of the past 20 years under house detention, faces a minimum of three years in jail and a maximum of five if found guilty.

Suu Kyi's two housekeepers, Khin Khin Win and Win Ma Ma, face similar charges for accommodating Yettaw's surprise visit and Yettaw faces several months in jail for breaching various laws, including a prohibition against swimming in Inya Lake, on which Suu Kyi's family compound sits.

The special court began reading the verdicts at 10 am, witnesses said.

Security was tight around the prison, with roadblocks set up to prevent normal traffic flow. Myanmar's junta has issued a warning against any violent reaction to the outcome of the trial which began on May 18.

According to still unconfirmed reports, authorities arrested several pro-democracy activists Thursday night.

A guilty verdict is widely expected.

Past court cases have demonstrated that Myanmar's judiciary has no independence from the country's ruling military junta, which wants Suu Kyi to remain out of politics until after a general election planned next year, observers said.

There was little hope that Suu Kyi would be found innocent because her freedom might galvanize opposition to the government's scheduled general election in 2010 that promises to be neither free nor fair.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party won the last Myanmar election in 1990 by a landslide even though she was in jail at the time of the polls.

Analysts said Suu Kyi, deemed the only opposition politician the ruling regime fears and a democracy icon to her people, could seriously threaten the military's so-called political reforms, which it has dubbed a "seven-step roadmap" to democracy.

Given this political reality, even Suu Kyi is not optimistic about Friday's court outcome.

"Daw [Mrs] Aung San Suu Kyi is prepared for the worst," her attorney Nyan Win said Tuesday after the court's final hearing. (dpa)