Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi 'to be freed from house arrest'

 

Burma's opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, will be freed when her house arrest ends in November, according to a government minister.

But that will probably be too late for this year's parliamentary elections - the first for two decades - which observers think will be held the month before.

The 64-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner, who has been detained for 15 of the past 21 years, was sentenced last year to 18 months of house arrest for harbouring an American who swam uninvited to her lakeside home.

Aung San Suu Kyi is set to be freed from house arrest later this year

Major General Maung Oo, Burma's home minister, told a meeting of businessmen and officials last week that she would be released in November when her sentence is due to end, according to witnesses.

Home ministry officials could not confirm that he had made the comments.

The planned election would be the first since 1990, when Miss Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party scored a landslide victory, which the country's junta refused to recognise.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1246006/Burmese-opposition-leader-freed-house-arrest.html#ixzz0djmSn2bi

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• Aung San Suu Kyi 'will be released in November' (telegraph.co.uk)