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John Yettaw, the American man convicted in Myanmar for his unauthorized visit to the house of Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, returned to the United States on Wednesday, three days after his release from a Burmese prison.
Yettaw arrived in Chicago from Bangkok, where he had undergone treatment after being deported from Burma on Sunday. The doctors who attended to Yettaw in Bangkok described his health as fragile, and he was seen wearing a surgical mask to guard against infection when he arrived at the Chicago airport. He is expected to catch a connection flight later in the day to his home state of Missouri.

Yettaw was released from prison on Sunday, following a deal between visiting U.S. Senator Jim Webb and Senior General Than Shew, the head of Myanmar's military regime. During his visit to Burma, Senator Webb, the chairman of the East Asia and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was also allowed to meet Suu Kyi, who is currently under house arrest.
Earlier in the month, a court in Yangon had found Suu Kyi and her co-defendant Yettaw--who swam two kilometers across Inya Lake in downtown Yangon uninvited, and spent two nights at Suu Kyi's lakeside villa in early May--guilty of violating the terms of the house arrest of the pro-democracy leader.
Suu Kyi was initially sentenced to three years of hard labor, but it was commuted to house arrest of up to 18 months, while Yettaw was sentenced to seven years of hard labor and imprisonment.
Yettaw had testified earlier that he swam across the lake to Suu Kyi's home to warn her and the Burmese junta that he had had a dream that she would be assassinated. His seven-year term included three years in prison for breaching Suu Kyi's house arrest, three years in prison with hard labor for an immigration violation and another year in jail with hard labor for swimming in a restricted zone.
Suu Kyi has already spent more than 13 of the last 19 years in detention, was rarely allowed to leave her home in Rangoon and her visitors were severely restricted. The international community and her supporters in Myanmar feel that the trial was just a show put up by country's military regime to hold Suu Kyi under custody during elections due next year, even after the expiry of her last six-year detention term that ended on May 27.
Myanmar has been under military rule ever since the military prevented Suu Kyi's NLD party from assuming power after winning in the 1989 national elections. It is estimated that over 2000 political prisoners still remain in Burmese prisons over differences with the ruling military regime.
Many international leaders have condemned Suu Kyi's sentencing. While U.S. President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned the Burmese opposition leader's sentencing and demanded her immediate release, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he was "saddened and angry" by the "purely political sentence" after a "sham" trial.
While UN Security Council expressed concern over the sentencing of Suu Kyi and called for the release of all political prisoners in Burma, the European extended sanctions on the Myanmar junta in response to the sentencing of Suu Kyi and included the judges responsible for Tuesday's "unjustified" verdict in its list of officials who would face a travel-ban and asset-freeze.