Lawyers in Myanmar appeal against Suu Kyi sentence

Activists from Myanmar chant slogans at a protest demanding the release of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in front of the Myanmar Embassy in Seoul August 18, 2009.

YANGON (Reuters) - A Myanmar court heard on Friday an appeal by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi over her conviction for an internal security breach earlier this year.

The hearing came a day after dozens of political prisoners were freed in an amnesty granted by Myanmar's military rulers to 7,114 detainees.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner, who has spent 14 of the past 20 years in some form of detention, was sentenced on August 12 to another 18 months of house arrest, enough to keep her off the campaign trail for next year's elections.

In July, Myanmar told the U.N. Security Council it planned an amnesty to allow prisoners take part in the polls, but it did not say how many political activists would be released and whether Suu Kyi would be among them.

Zaw Win, the head of the country's Prison Department, said about 250 of those released from Yangon's Insein Prison had been held under laws regarding immigration and unlawful association, which critics say the junta uses to jail political opponents.

Naing Naing, 68, one of the released prisoners and a member of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party, said at least 30 political prisoners were among those freed from Insein.

"As I know there are 15 members of the NLD party among those who were freed ... There may be some more," he told Reuters. The Washington-based U.S. Campaign for Burma named 54 political prisoners it said had been released.

In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who visited Myanmar in July, welcomed the latest release but called in a statement for the military authorities to free remaining political prisoners, including Suu Kyi.

At Suu Kyi's appeal hearing, her lawyers told the Yangon Divisional Court the verdict should be overturned because the law she was charged under no longer existed. The opposition leader was not allowed to attend the hearing. A decision on the appeal is expected on October 2, her lawyer, Nyan Win, said.

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The charismatic NLD leader was indicted in May for breaking a security law protecting the state from "subversive elements," just a few weeks before her house arrest was due to be lifted.

The trial triggered international outrage. Critics said the charges were trumped up by Myanmar's military rulers to keep Suu Kyi under lock and key and minimize her influence ahead of the polls.

The charges stemmed from a bizarre incident in May, when an American, John Yettaw, swam to her lakeside home in Yangon and stayed there, uninvited, for two days. He was sentenced to seven years' hard labor but was later deported.

Myanmar will hold its first election in two decades some time next year, which the junta says will bring an end to almost five decades of unbroken military rule. Few, however, are convinced, and say the army will still hold the real power.

The military government says there are no political prisoners in the country, while rights groups say there are more than 2,000. Failure to free "prisoners of conscience" has led to Western sanctions against the regime.

(Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Alan Raybould, Tomasz Janowski and Paul Simao)