RAKHINE: Myanmar has granted an early release to seven soldiers, jailed for killing 10 Rohingya Muslim men and boys during a 2017 military crackdown.
The soldiers were sentenced in 2018 to 10 years in prison for the Inn Din village killings, but they “are no longer detained”, prison officials were cited as saying by the BBC.
They also served less jail time than two Reuters reporters, who uncovered the killings.
These soldiers were the only people convicted for the 2017 crackdown on Rohingya in Rakhine state.
More than 700,000 people fled the country due to the military operation.
A spokesperson for the Prison Department told reporters the seven soldiers convicted over the Inn Din executions were “no longer detained in our prisons,” without giving further details.
On the other hand, the journalists — Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo — who exposed the massacre were sentenced to seven years in prison. The two journalists were granted a presidential amnesty in May after serving 16 months behind bars.
Authorities launched a probe into the Inn Din killings after the journalists’ investigative work was published.
The massacre – and the jailing of journalists investigating it – was seen by observers as indicative of the Army’s role in the treatment of Rohingya in Myanmar.
Aside from the Inn Din killings, the military exonerated itself of any wrongdoing in Rakhine, despite large amounts of testimony from Rohingya refugees describing atrocities.
[source_without_link]IANS[/source_without_link]