NAYPYITAW - Myanmar's Supreme Court heard the appeal on Tuesday of two Reuters journalists imprisoned for breaking a colonial-era official secrets law, in a case that has raised questions about Myanmar's progress towards democracy.
Outlining their grounds of appeal, the reporters' lawyer, Khin Maung Zaw, cited lack of proof of a crime and evidence that the pair were set up by police. A policeman had told a lower court last year that officers had planted secret documents on the two reporters. The journalists were not present at Tuesday's hearing, but their families had travelled to the capital Naypyitaw, about 370 km north of Yangon, to attend.
Suu Kyi said in September, the week after their conviction, that the reporters' case had nothing to do with press freedom as the men had been jailed for handling official secrets, not because they were journalists. "The police planted the documents on Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo so their investigation of the massacre would be stopped," he said.
During eight months of hearings prior to their conviction, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo testified that two policemen they had not met before handed them papers rolled up in a newspaper during a meeting at a Yangon restaurant on Dec. 12, 2017. Almost immediately afterwards, they said, they were bundled into a car by plainclothes officers.
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