Yangon - Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Friday pleaded not guilty to charges that she broke the conditions of her detention by allowing an American national to swim in to her compound-cum-prison earlier this month.

"I am not guilty," Suu Kyi told a court being held in Insein Prison. "Because I didn't commit any crime."

Judge Thaung Nyunt accused Suu Kyi of violating Section 22 of the national security act by permitting US national John William Yettaw to enter her Yangon home on May 3 to 5, where she has been kept under detention for the past six years.

Yettaw, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, told the court Friday morning that Suu Kyi was innocent of abetting his entry to her house, which he accomplished by swimming in Inya Lake that rims her family compound at night. He was arrested in the same lake on the morning of May 6.

"I had a dream that Aung San Suu Kyi would be assassinated so I came to warn her," Yettaw told the court, according to Suu Kyi's lawyer Nyan Win.

No diplomats or journalists were allowed to attend the court session on Friday, the fifth day of the sensational trial in which the defendants include Suu Kyi, her two household helpers and Yettaw, 53. In a surprise development, Myanmar's junta allowed 30 diplomats and five local journalists to attend the trial on Wednesday.

Yettaw faces several charges, including immigration violations for visiting a prisoner while on a tourist visa and municipal laws for swimming illegally in Inya Lake.

Prosecutors claimed Yettaw first visited Suu Kyi's house on November 30 when he handed over his church's Book of Mormon to her servants for Suu Kyi to read.

Yettaw's uninvited visit to Suu Kyi's residence has allowed the ruling junta to charge her with violating the terms of her house detention, a crime that carries a minimum of three years imprisonment and a maximum of five.

Her current imprisonment term was scheduled to expire on May 27.

It is widely believed that the judges would find Suu Kyi guilty and sentence her to another three to five years in detention, long enough to keep her out of the political picture while the junta stages a general election next year.

The new case against Suu Kyi has outraged the international community and even prompted warnings from Myanmar's close allies in the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Suu Kyi, 63, is the leader of the National League for Democracy opposition party, which won the 1990 general election by a landslide but has been blocked from power by Myanmar's junta for the past 19 years. Suu Kyi has spent 13 of those years under house arrest.(dpa)