YANGON, Sept 26: Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was put under house arrest at her Yangon residence after being discharged from hospital where she underwent surgery last week, her doctor and the government said on Friday.

“Aung San Suu Kyi was discharged from Asia Royal Hospital... after undergoing surgery for a gynaecological condition, and left for her lakeside residence together with two of her personal doctors,” the junta said.

“She will continue to rest at home under the supervision of her doctors while the government stands ready to provide and assist her with medical and humanitarian needs,” it said in a statement.

One of the doctors, her personal physician Tin Myo Win, said earlier Friday that she would be put under house arrest on her return to the lakeside residence, after spending nearly four months in detention at a secret location.

“She will go home but will still be effectively under house arrest. This has been communicated to me by the authorities concerned,” he told reporters. The government statement made no mention of the conditions of her release.

Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been put under house arrest twice before since taking up the pro-democracy cause in 1988, was detained on May 30 after a pro-junta gang attacked her supporters during a political tour of the north.

The 58-year-old Nobel peace laureate was held virtually incommunicado until being admitted to hospital on September 17 for the three-hour operation which her doctor described as “semi-urgent”.

In a statement read out by him, she thanked her supporters who have maintained a vigil outside the hospital until they were ordered to disperse Friday.

“I ask specifically that nobody should want to see me leave the hospital. Anybody who wishes to see me once I am home should make arrangements through the authorities,” she said in her first public comments for four months.—AFP