Lawyer meets Aung San Suu Kyi, says she's thin but well

PHOTO-AFP
Monday September 1, 4:05 PM
Lawyer meets Aung San Suu Kyi, says she's thin but well



YANGON (AFP) - Myanmar's detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has lost some weight but is feeling well, her lawyer said Monday after a 30-minute meeting with her.

Kyi Win said he went to the Nobel peace laureate's lakeside Yangon home, where she has been confined for most of the last 19 years, to show her a draft of a legal appeal against her ongoing detention.




Exiled dissidents have said they believed that the 63-year-old could be staging a hunger strike, but Kyi Win declined to comment on the reports.

Her National League for Democracy (NLD) party said last week that she had not collected her food supplies for the previous two weeks, but said the circumstances were unclear and downplayed speculation of a hunger strike.

"She says she is well, but she has lost some weight," Kyi Win told reporters. "She told me, 'I am a little tired and I need to rest'."

He said he left her a draft of the appeal for her to read over, saying their meeting was too short for him to discuss it with her in detail.

The lawyer and her personal physician Tin Myo Win were allowed to meet with her on August 17, when she received a medical checkup. She had also met with the lawyer on August 8.

The doctor has declined to speak with reporters, but a Western diplomat who met him last week said Tin Myo Win was very cautious about the hunger strike claims.

"We cannot confirm anything," the diplomat told AFP, adding: "I do not think that she has started a hunger strike."

The doctor said Aung San Suu Kyi appeared "in good health" and had not made specific requests other than to be allowed a new meeting with her lawyer, the diplomat said.

Until last month, she had not been allowed to meet with her lawyer since 2004.