Rangoon The novels of John le Carré and biographies of Winston Churchill are among the books that Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese democracy leader and Nobel Prize winner, is assembling in expectation of a long prison sentence when a court in Rangoon delivers its verdict today.

Her lawyers say that she has resigned herself to a guilty verdict after her 2½-month trial for allegedly breaking the terms of her house arrest. If her fears are realised, she will be confined, not in the large house where she was formerly detained but in one of Burma’s jails, where more than 2,000 other political prisoners also languish.

“I think Daw [Madam] Aung San Suu Kyi s preparing for the worst,” said her lawyer, Nyan Win, who is also spokesman for her political party, the National League for Democracy.

Ms Suu Kyi and two of her companions have been on trial since May for giving shelter to John Yettaw, an eccentric American who swam uninvited to her lakeside home in central Rangoon. She gave him food and shelter but prosecutors argued that this violated the rules of the house arrest to which Ms Suu Kyi has been confined for almost 14 of the past 20 years.

Burma’s courts are firmly under the control of the junta and almost never find in favour of political prisoners.