Myanmar frees soldiers jailed for Rohingya massacre

Seven soldiers jailed for killing a group of Rohingya Muslims have been freed from a Myanmar jail despite serving less time than two reporters imprisoned for exposing the massacre. Prisons department director general Myint Soe told journalists the soldiers were “no longer in detention”, declining to give any further information.

Four officers and three soldiers were sentenced in 2018 to 10 years with hard labour for killing 10 Rohingya villagers, with army chief Min Aung Hlaing and civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi holding up the sentence as evidence of accountability within the military.

Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who helped expose the killing, were jailed last September for seven years on charges linked to their reporting. They were granted a presidential pardon this month after spending over 500 days behind bars. The killings unfolded during a bloody army crackdown in 2017 that forced some 740,000 Rohingya to flee.