Aung San Suu Kyi will remain under house arrest after Myanmar's Supreme Court rejected an appeal against her extended detention.
The decision keeps the opposition leader, who has spent most of the past two decades locked up, in detention ahead of elections promised by military rulers this for this year, AFP reports.
Ms Suu Kyi had her incarceration lengthened by 18 months in August after being convicted over an incident in which an uninvited American man swam to her lakeside home.
Her legal team immediately vowed to lodge a final "special" appeal with Myanmar's chief justice to win her freedom.
Ms Suu Kyi was not at the court in the former capital Yangon to hear the verdict on Friday.
The next step would be to write to the chief justice and ask for a panel of judges in Yangon to hear the special appeal. If that fails, they can ask for a similar appeal to be heard in the new capital Naypyidaw.
Ms Suu Kyi has been in jail or under house arrest for 14 of the last 20 years since the country's last elections in 1990, which her party, the National League for Democracy, won by a landslide. The junta then prevented it from taking power.
