The party of Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi said on Tuesday it was hopeful that she would be unconditionally released after a court agreed to hear an appeal against her recent conviction. Lawyers for the Nobel laureate and the country’s ruling junta are due to present legal arguments on September IB, after Suu Kyi challenged last

month's guilty verdict for sheltering an American man who swam to her lakeside home.

The regime has ordered her to spend another IB months under house arrest, softening the original sentence of three years' hard labour. However, the house arrest is -still long enough to keep Myanmar's opposition leader away from the political scene during elections scheduled for 2010.