YANGON: Myanmar police officers described to a court today how they arrested a US man who swam to the house of Aung San Suu Kyi.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner faces charges of breaching her house arrest over the bizarre incident this month in which John Yettaw intruded on the lakeside house where she has been detained for most of the last 19 years.

The closed-door trial at the notorious Insein prison heard evidence from five witnesses, including four police who detained the American as he swam back across the lake after spending two nights at her house, a party spokesman said.

“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,” Nyan Win, the spokes-man for her National League for Democracy, told reporters.

“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 Nyan Win, who was allowed to be in the court as part of Aung San Suu Kyi’s legal team.