Ruling on witness in Reuters case in May

YANGON: A judge in Myanmar will rule next week on whether a police captain was credible when he testified that two Reuters reporters were framed, after prosecutors argued on Wednesday that the officer should be declared an unreliable witness.

In what has become a landmark press freedom case, Captain Moe Yan Naing told the court last Friday that a senior officer had ordered police to “trap” one of the two journalists arrested in December, telling police to meet reporter Wa Lone at a restaurant in Yangon and give him “secret documents”.

Prosecutors had called Moe Yan Naing as a witness against Wa Lone, 32, and colleague Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, but asked the court to declare him a hostile witness after his testimony appeared to undermine their case.

The court in Yangon has been holding hearings since January to decide whether the Reuters journalists will be charged under the colonial-era Official Secrets Act, which carries a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison.

At the time of their arrest, the reporters had been working on an investigation into the killing of 10 Rohingya Muslim men and boys in a village in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state. The killings took place during an army crackdown that United Nations agencies say sent nearly 700,000 people fleeing to Bangladesh.

A picture of the 10 victims taken shortly before they were killed and published by Reuters in February as part of a report on the events in the village of Inn Din shows Moe Yan Naing in the background, holding a rifle.

At Wednesday’s hearing, prosecutors said Moe Yan Naing’s testimony was unreliable because he had told a different story to police when he was arrested. They also said Moe Yan Naing held a grudge because he is facing misconduct charges.

Defence lawyer Khin Maung Zaw said the prosecution had not established any evidence of bias. He said the police captain’s testimony in court did not contradict earlier statements, since he had not been asked about details of the arrest of the Reuters journalists at the time of his own arrest.

“There is no reason to find that Moe Yan Naing is lying,” Khin Maung Zaw told reporters after the hearing.

Myanmar government spokesman Zaw Htay was not immediately available for comment. He has declined to comment after previous hearings, saying the country’s courts are independent.

Lead prosecutor Kyaw Min Aung did not respond to a request for comment after the hearing.

Moe Yan Naing was arrested on Dec 12, the same day Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were detained.

He told the court last week that he was one of several officers from the 8th Security Police Battalion who had given interviews to Wa Lone who were interrogated that day about their dealings with him.