Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to be shifted to prison

Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to be shifted to prison Yangon  - Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is expected to be shifted Thursday to Yangon's notorious Insein Jail from her home, where she has been kept under detention for the past six years, opposition sources said.

"Myanmar authorities told Aung San Suu Kyi's lawyer U Kyi Win that she will be moved to Insein Jail," the opposition National League for Democracy party spokesman Nyan Win said.

Suu Kyi, 63, the 1991 Nobel peace prize winner, is expected to be moved to the jail Thursday morning.

Kyi Win met with Suu Kyi twice on Wednesday, apparently to prepare her for the shift.

The move comes almost a week after US national John William Yethaw, 53, swam to Suu Kyi's family compound on Inya Lake and stayed in her house for three nights.

Yethaw was arrested on the morning of May 6 while swimming away from Suu Kyi's house.

Suu Kyi has been kept in near complete isolation for the past six years, with only weekly visits by her doctors allowed and occasional visits by United Nations special envoys.

Only her two domestic helpers have permission to stay in the house.

Suu Kyi, the only Nobel Peace Prize laureate currently under detention, was interrogated last week about Yethaw's visit.

She reportedly told authorities that she deemed the visit "illegal" and "unacceptable," and had kept Yethaw downstairs in her home-cum-jail for the entire time, sources said.

Suu Kyi is the daughter of Aung San, an independence hero who was assassinated in 1948. She returned to Myanmar in 1988 to tend to her ailing mother and became caught up in the country's nascent pro- democracy movement, of which she swiftly became a leading figure. (dpa)