Aung San Suu Kyi says swimming visitor stayed downstairs Read more: "Aung San Suu Kyi says swimming visitor stayed downstairs - Monsters and Critics"

Yangon (M&C)- Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has told authorities that a US citizen who swam to her house on Inya Lake and stayed three nights had entered illegally and was kept downstairs, authorities said Friday.

John William Yeattaw, 53, was arrested at 5:30 am Wednesday at Inya Lake, which rims Suu Kyi's family home, where she has been kept under house arrest for the past six years.

Yeattaw reportedly arrived in Yangon Saturday and managed to enter Suu Kyi's compound by swimming there Sunday night. He secretly stayed at Suu Kyi's house until swimming away early Wednesday, state media reported.

Myanmar authorities questioned Suu Kyi about the incident on Thursday, and were informed that the she deemed her visitor's entry 'illegal' and 'unacceptable,' and had kept him downstairs in her home-cum-jail for the entire time, security sources who asked to remain anonymous said.

Suu Kyi's helper, Khin Win, and Khin Win's daughter, Ma Win Pa Pa, also live in the downstairs portion of the two-storey Aung San family home.

Authorities found in Yeattaw's bag a flashlight, a camera, pliers and 100 dollars in cash plus kyat currency notes.

Suu Kyi's compound is under heavy guard and constant surveillance. She was last arrested on May 27, 2003, and has been kept under house arrest in near-complete isolation.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has spent 13 of the past 19 years under detention in her family's Yangon compound.

Suu Kyi is the daughter of Aung San, an independence hero who was assassinated in 1948. She returned to Myanmar in 1988 to tend to her ailing mother and became caught up in the country's nascent pro-democracy movement, of which she swiftly became a leading figure.