Myanmar official: Suu Kyi has heart checkup

YANGON, Myanmar — Detained Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was taken briefly to a hospital for a heart checkup, a government official said Monday. No other details of her condition were available, but hospital staff said they saw Suu Kyi walk in and walk out on her own. The 64-year-old Nobel Peace laureate was not known to have had a heart condition, and it was not clear what prompted the apparently unscheduled checkup on Sunday night. The government official said Suu Kyi was taken from her lakeside home around 9 p.m. to the Yangon General Hospital. She was sent back home about 20 minutes later, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media. The diminutive, 100-pound (45-kilogram) Suu Kyi has been in frail health for years. She suffered from dehydration and low blood pressure last year. Her personal physician, Dr. Tin Myo Win, visited her April 1 for a monthly routine medical checkup and again last Thursday with two other doctors to conduct an ultrasound examination. Nyan Win, Suu Kyi's lawyer and party spokesman, said he was unaware of her health condition. Suu Kyi has spent 14 of the last 20 years in jail or under house arrest. Her latest house arrest was extended last year after she was convicted of violating the terms of her detention when an American man swam uninvited to her lakeside property. Her political party won 1990 elections by a landslide, but the military, which has ruled Myanmar since 1962, refused to cede power. The party is boycotting elections later this year widely viewed as undemocratic. — AP