Home

Myanmar’s top court to rule on jailed Reuters journalists’ appeal

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Myanmar’s Supreme Court will rule on Tuesday on an appeal of two Reuters journalists imprisoned for breaking a colonial-era official secrets law, in a case that has raised questions about the country’s transition to democracy.

Wa Lone, 33, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 29, have spent more than 16 months in detention since they were arrested in December 2017 while working on an investigation into the killing of ten Rohingya Muslim men during a military crackdown in the western part of the country.

The Supreme Court, the highest court in Myanmar, listed the journalists’ case on its website and Facebook page on Saturday.

The government has said they had been found in possession of secret documents that could have harmed national security.

Outlining their grounds of appeal in March, the reporters’ lawyer, Khin Maung Zaw, cited lack of proof of a crime and evidence that the pair was set up by police.

A policeman told a lower court in 2018 that officers had planted secret documents on the two reporters.

Author

MOST READ