US Senator Jim Webb met with Myanmar’s democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi on Saturday, the first foreign official allowed to see her since she was sentenced to 18 months of detention by the ruling junta, witnesses said.

The 64-year-old Nobel Peace laureate was driven from her residence to a nearby government guest house for a 40-minute meeting with Webb after which reporters saw her taken back to her home by car.

Webb’s visit, the first by a member of the US Congress in more than a decade, has drawn criticism from activists who say it confers legitimacy on a brutal regime, but the Obama administration gave the Virginia Democrat its blessing.

The green light to meet with Suu Kyi may have been given to mitigate the torrent of international criticism against Myanmar following her trial. In July, authorities barred UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon from meeting with Suu Kyi during a two-day visit.

Webb arrived in Myanmar’s capital of Naypyitaw on Friday, just days after the world condemned the ruling generals for sentencing Suu Kyi to more house arrest. Earlier, he was reportedly on his way to see an American man — sentenced to seven years in prison in the same trial — but that visit was apparently cancelled or postponed.

Suu Kyi has spent 14 of the last 20 years in detention. Her latest sentence came after she and the American, John Yettaw, were convicted of violating the terms of her house arrest when he secretly swam to her house and spent two days there.

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