The claim came as Asian neighbours finally joined the west in condemning the charges against the 63-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner, who faces up to five years in jail if convicted of violating her house arrest.

Five witnesses gave evidence on Tuesday to the closed-door trial at the notorious Insein prison, including four police officers who said they had arrested American John Yettaw after he spent two days at her lakeside house.

'It indicates that they are trying to finish as soon as possible' by calling many witnesses, Nyan Win, the spokesman for Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, told reporters. 'If it continues like this, we guess it can be finished by next week.'

Mr Nyan Win said the prosecution was expected to call 22 witnesses, all but one of them policemen. The senior officer who filed the original complaint against Aung San Suu Kyi testified on Monday.

Critics say the military regime has trumped up the charges to keep Aung San Suu Kyi locked up during elections due next year, and also to beat a May 27 deadline when her latest six-year period of detention expires.

Aung San Suu Kyi has spent 13 of the last 19 years in detention, most of them under house arrest at the residence which Yettaw visited using a pair of homemade flippers. His family have described the visit as well intentioned. Yettaw, a former army veteran who was held on May 6, and two female political aides who live with Aung San Suu Kyi are also on trial at the jail near Yangon.

'The witnesses described the situation when they arrested him. They said they watched him as he swam and at first they thought he was a thief,' Mr Nyan Win said, recounting the testimony by the four policemen on Tuesday.

'But they said that they knew as soon as he came to the bank of the lake that he was a foreigner. Then they took him to special branch,' said Mr Nyan Win, who was allowed to be in the court as part of Aung San Suu Kyi's legal team.

Around 100 party members gathered outside the prison on Tuesday, including Win Tin, formerly Myanmar's longest serving political prisoner, while riot police manned a tight security cordon, witnesses said. -- AFP