Yangon - Detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is thin and malnourished after refusing to receive food deliveries at her home-cum-jail for almost a month, her lawyer said Monday.

Kyi Win, Suu Kyi's attorney who has met with her four times in recent weeks, denied that the Nobel peace laureate had been on a hunger strike but had only refused food parcels since August 16.

"She did not refuse the food parcels for her own interest but for the sake of the people, to help them obtain their rights and uphold the law," said Kyi Win, speaking at his Yangon office.

Suu Kyi's personal doctor, Tin Myo Win, spent four hours at her residence on Sunday, and found the detained opposition leader to be malnourished, but she has now resumed eating more regularly, said Kyi Win.

Kyi Win and Tin Myo Win are two of the few visitors Suu Kyi has been allowed over the past five-plus years of detention in near complete isolation.

Suu Kyi has been under house arrest since May, 2003, and has spent about 13 of the past 18 years under detention.

She has held several meetings with her lawyer in recent weeks to appeal against her latest sentence of another six months to a year under house arrest, which some claim is a breach of Myanmar law.

Suu Kyi was charged with disturbing the peace and threatening national security by visiting the countryside to rally her supporters in May, 2003, prompting an attack on her party by pro-government thugs that left several of her followers dead and Suu Kyi injured.

The charge against her carries a maximum of five years imprisonment, but Suu Kyi's detention is now entering the sixth year.

Suu Kyi started refused food parcels delivered to her house on August 16, as a show of protest against her ongoing detention and the ruling junta's refusal to meet with her to discuss a resolution to Myanmar's political stalemate.

While the junta holds absolute power in Myanmar, the international community still supports Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy party won the 1990 election, as the most credible leader of the country. (dpa)