Burmese authorities today charged opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi with breaching the conditions of her house arrest and her trial will start on May 18, her lawyer said.

"The authorities have charged Aung San Suu Kyi and her two maids under Section 22" of the Law Safeguarding the State from the Dangers of Subversive Elements, under which she is detained, lawyer Hla Myo Myint said.

aung san suu kyi burma myanmar prison 140509 01 News of the legal proceedings come as the authorities announced that a US man will be charged over immigration violations and breaching a security law after he secretly entered the house of the opposition leader, a lawyer said.

Sixty-three-year-old Aung San Suu Kyi was driven at high speed from her Rangoon home where she has spent most of the past two decades under house arrest, and was detained at the notorious Insein prison, along with two of her maids.

US national John Yettaw was detained by police last week for gaining uninvited access to Aung San Suu Kyi's sprawling off-limits residence and staying there for two days before he was caught.

It is only about two weeks before the Nobel Laureate's latest period of detention at home is due to expire, and critics said it was a way for the ruling generals to keep her locked up ahead of elections due in 2010.

aung san suu kyi burma myanmar prison 140509 02 "Aung San Suu Kyi and the maids have been detained in the prison. The authorities have prepared a case against them," Nyan Win, the spokesman for her National League for Democracy, told AFP .

Witnesses said a convoy flanked by police vehicles sped away from her residence early this morning and arrived 15 minutes later at the prison, which holds many opponents of Burma's military regime.

Her party said at the weekend that she was in poor health and called for her to be given urgent medical assistance after her doctor was arrested for questioning over the incident with the American.

Lawyer Kyi Win said last week that Yettaw was an "adventurous" American acting of his own accord.

13 years in virtual isolation

Aung San Suu Kyi has spent 13 of the past 19 years in virtual isolation in her home since the junta refused to recognise the NLD's landslide victory in the country's last elections in 1990.

The most recent, six-year period of detention is due to end on May 27. The junta says it is keeping her locked away under a 1975 law to protect the state from "destructive elements."

"This is the cunning plan of the regime to put Aung San Suu Kyi in continuous detention beyond the six years allowed by the law they used to justify the detention of her," Aung Din, executive director of the Washington-based US Campaign for Burma, said in a statement.

aung san suu kyi burma myanmar prison 140509 03 In Washington, which has imposed strict sanctions on Burma, the US State Department said that Burmese authorities had allowed a US diplomat to visit Yettaw on Wednesday.

"Mr Yettaw has not been charged, nor have the Burmese authorities provided information on the next steps in this case," the US statement said, referring to the country by its former name.

Burmese officials also confirmed that the US had obtained consular access to Yettaw, 53, whom authorities in Rangoon have described as a Vietnam War veteran.

The state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper said that Yettaw had confessed to arriving in Rangoon on a tourist visa on May 2. He then swam to the compound the following night "and secretly entered the house and stayed there."

Burmese official sources said the man had succeeded in meeting Aung San Suu Kyi during his time at the house before he was arrested in the early hours of May 6 while swimming back across the lake.

The newspaper said authorities confiscated his passport and a black haversack, torch, folding pliers, a camera, two US 100-dollar bills and some Myanmar currency notes.