YANGON - A court in army-ruled Myanmar heard closing arguments for the defense on Friday in the trial on security-related charges of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and the prosecution will have its say next week.

Suu Kyi's lawyer, Nyan Win, told Reuters that the hearing had ended and prosecutors would put their final arguments on Monday. He did not know when a verdict would be given.

The trial, which began in May, has taken place mainly behind closed doors in Yangon's Insein Prison and reporters were kept out on Friday, although some European diplomats were allowed in.

Nobel laureate Suu Kyi, 64, faces five years in prison if found guilty of breaking a draconian security law that protects the state from subversive elements.

There have been no indications from the junta that it would heed international calls to free her.

At an Asia-Pacific security forum in Thailand on Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton offered Myanmar the prospect of better relations with the United States but said that depended in part on the fate of Suu Kyi.

Asked if Clinton's words would have any impact on the junta's attitude toward the case and the political situation in general, lawyer Nyan Win said: I don't think so. As for her, she is preparing for the worst.

There has been no official response to Clinton's comments but state media, seen as a mouthpiece for the junta, have shown no sign of compromise on the subject of Suu Kyi.

Rights groups say there are more than 2,000 political prisoners in Myanmar but a commentary carried by three state-controlled newspapers on Thursday described these as common criminals, guilty of undermining stability.

Daw Suu Kyi, like them, is not a political prisoner, but the person who is on trial for breaching an existing law, it said.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also urged junta leader Than Shwe to release Suu Kyi during a two-day visit to Myanmar this month, but he was not allowed to see her.

TRUMPED UP

Critics of the military regime see the trial as a trumped-up affair to keep Suu Kyi out of the way until after elections scheduled for next year.

Her National League for Democracy (NLD) won the country's last general election by a landslide in 1990, but was denied the chance to rule by the military.

She is currently being held in a guest house inside Insein Prison and has spent 14 of the past 20 years in some form of detention, mostly under house arrest

Her trial stems from a bizarre incident in which an American intruder stayed for two days at her lakeside home in Yangon in May after swimming across the lake. He had not been invited, but the authorities said his presence was a breach of the terms of her house arrest.
The American, John Yettaw, and two of Suu Kyi's housemaids have been charged under the same law -- legislation her legal team says should not be applied because it is obsolete.

(Writing by Alan Raybould; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

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