Myanmar case against reporters delayed

YANGON: A Myanmar police investigator failed to show up in court yesterday to testify as a prosecution witness against two Reuters reporters accused of possessing secret government papers.

An officer said Major Tin Win Maung was not present because he was “investigating two cases”. The major conducted the inquiry after the journalists were arrested on December 12. They have now spent six months in detention. “Six months is too long, but we are not depressed; they can’t destroy us,” reporter Wa Lone told media after proceedings were adjourned to Monday.

In what has become a landmark press freedom case, the Yangon court has been holding hearings since January to decide whether Wa Lone, 32, and his colleague Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, will be charged under the colonial-era Official Secrets Act, which carries a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison.Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has told Japanese broadcaster NHK the reporters “broke the Official Secrets Act”.

At the time of their arrest, the reporters were investigating the killing of 10 Rohingya Muslim men and boys in Rakhine state. “I reiterate the EU’s appeal for their... release,” Kristian Schmidt, the EU representative in Yangon, said yesterday on Twitter.