A Myanmar court heard defence witnesses on Monday vouch for the integrity of two Reuters journalists accused of obtaining secret state documents and will hear final arguments in two weeks, when the trial regarded as a test of press freedom resumes.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called for the immediate release of two Reuters reporters detained in Myanmar when he met Myanmar Foreign Minister Kyaw Tin on Saturday on the sidelines of a regional conference in Singapore, the State Department said.
Kyaw Soe Oo, one of two Reuters journalists accused of obtaining state secrets in Myanmar, told a court on Monday that the information in documents police say were found on his mobile phone was already public.
A Reuters reporter on trial in Myanmar had his head covered with a black hood, was deprived of sleep and forced to kneel for hours at a secret police interrogation site after he was arrested with a colleague last year, he told a court on Tuesday.
A jailed Reuters reporter told a court in Myanmar on Monday that documents he is accused of breaking state secrets laws to obtain were planted by a police officer, who handed him papers he had not sought in order to entrap him. The officer had then lied to the court about what happened, he said.
A Reuters reporter on trial in Myanmar said the police questioning after he and a colleague were arrested in December centred on their reporting of a massacre of Rohingya Muslims, not on secret state documents they are accused of obtaining.
A Reuters reporter accused of obtaining secret state documents in Myanmar told a court on Monday a policeman had called him on the day he was arrested and insisted on a meeting, at which the officer abruptly handed some papers to him and a colleague.
A court in Myanmar on Monday charged two jailed Reuters journalists with obtaining secret state documents, moving the landmark press freedom case into its trial stage after six months of preliminary hearings.
A Myanmar court has charged two Reuters reporters with breaching the colonial-era Official Secrets Act. They face up to 14 years in prison if convicted.
A Myanmar court has charged two Reuters reporters with breaching the colonial-era Official Secrets Act. They face up to 14 years in prison if convicted.
Two Reuters journalists, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, have been detained in Myanmar since Dec. 12, 2017. At the time of their arrests, they had been working on an investigation into the killing of 10 Rohingya Muslim men and boys in a village in Rakhine state.
The European Union on Monday called on Myanmar to drop charges against two Reuters reporters after a court charged them with obtaining secret state documents.
A Myanmar court will rule on Monday on whether to charge two Reuters reporters accused of obtaining secret documents, a decision that could either see them freed after nearly seven months in jail or move the landmark press freedom case to trial.
Two Reuters journalists, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, have been detained in Myanmar since Dec. 12, 2017. At the time of their arrests, they had been working on an investigation into the killing of 10 Rohingya Muslim men and boys in a village in Rakhine state.
A Myanmar court will rule next week on whether to charge two Reuters reporters accused of obtaining secret documents, after prosecutors and defence lawyers delivered final arguments on Monday in the pre-trial phase of the landmark case.
A police witness in the case against two Reuters reporters accused of possessing state secrets in Myanmar is "unreliable," the reporters' lawyer said on Monday, because he obtained testimony from previous witnesses, in violation of police code.
A Myanmar police investigator failed to show up at court on Tuesday to testify as a prosecution witness against two Reuters reporters who were arrested in December and accused of possessing secret government papers.
(This June 11 story has been refiled to fix typo in paragraph three.)
Documents Myanmar police say they found on the mobile phones of two Reuters reporters accused of possessing state secrets were not confidential, defence lawyers said on Tuesday, because the information was publicly available before they were arrested.
Data that could support the defence of two Reuters reporters accused of possessing secret documents in Myanmar was missing from police phone evidence submitted to a court by prosecutors, their lawyers said on Monday.