Yangon  - Myanmar has released San Dar Win, a daughter of the country's former dictator Ne Win, from six years of house arrest in her lakeside home in Yangon, relatives confirmed Saturday.

"She was visiting her friend's house after her release," a relative told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. She was released on Friday.

San Dar Win, 56, a doctor and "favourite" daughter of former strongman Ne Win, who dominated Myanmar politics between 1962 to 1988, was placed under house arrest at Ne Win's villa in Yangon after her husband and three sons were arrested on charges of plotting a coup in 2002.

Her husband Aye Zaw Win, 60, and three sons - Aye Ne Win, 31, Kyaw Ne Win, 29, and Zwe Ne Win, 27 - were sentenced to death by hanging in September 2002 but still remain in Insein Prison, Yangon.

Ne Win came to power in 1962 after a coup against Myanmar's first elected post-independence prime minister U Nu.

He launched Myanmar, also called Burma, on the disastrous "Burmese Way to Socialism," which transformed the country from one of the richest in Southeast Asia to Least Developed Developing Nation status in 1988.

Ne Win resigned in 1988 in the wake of a mass uprising against the country's military regime, which was crushed with an army crackdown that left an estimated 3,000 dead.

He died on December 5, 2002, at the age of 92 while under house arrest with his daughter San Dar Win. (dpa)