Myanmar policeman claims Reuters reporters set up

Myanmar policeman claims Reuters reporters set up
Wa Lone. Photo: EPA

In a potential bombshell testimony on Friday in the case of jailed Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, a police officer described his role in a plot to “trap” the reporters, orchestrated by a senior officer leading an internal probe into the matter of alleged “secret documents” in their possession.
In a statement issued shortly after the hearing, Reuters President and Editor-in-Chief Stephen J. Adler said, “One of the prosecution's own witnesses admitted that the police received orders to plant evidence ... This case cannot be squared with fairness or justice, and it's time to bring it to an end.”
The pair was arrested in December following their investigation into the killing of 10 Rohingya Muslim men in the village of Inn Din in western Myanmar's Rakhine State amid a military crackdown that has sent nearly 700,000 people fleeing to neighbouring Bangladesh.
Police Capt. Moe Yan Naing, arrested just hours after the Reuters journalists and under police detention in Yangon for the past 129 days, said that following separate interviews with himself and four other officers conducted by Wa Lone, a plan was put together by Brigadier General Tin Ko Ko to entrap the journalist. 
Moe Yan Naing said that after being handed rolled-up documents by Lance Corporal Khin Maung Lin and another officer whom the defendants claim was at the meeting arranged in a restaurant on the outskirts of Yangon, police from Htauk Kyant Township were ordered to make an arrest off premises.
Allegedly, the operation didn't go as planned, and in addition to Kyaw Soe Oo unexpectedly accompanying Wa Lone to the restaurant, Htuak Kyant police arrested the pair inside of the restaurant. Audible laughs were heard in the courthouse when the state's witness mentioned rumours that uniformed officers had accidentally put fellow plainclothes officers in handcuffs during the course of the raid.
With the shocking and potentially damning testimony offered by the 18th witness in pre-trial proceedings, prosecutors immediately moved to bring forth statements made by Moe Yan Naing while under police detention, containing no mention of the plot outlined in his testimony. Line by line, the witness was cross-examined on the accuracy of his statement, a process through which the prosecution hopes to paint Moe Yan Naing as a hostile witness in the next hearing scheduled for April 25, giving them much greater leverage.
“They have instructed Moe Yan Naing to testify according to the police statement. At the court, Moe Yan Naing didn't follow their instructions and he said what is true,” defence attorney U Khin Maung Zaw said. “If he is declared a hostile witness … all he testified in front of the court will be washed away. I won't allow, at any cost.”
With recent news that seven soldiers have been handed 10-year sentences in connection with the Rakhine slayings that the Reuters journalists worked to expose, international attention has only continued to build around the case.
“What the police officer said was the truth,” Wa Lone shouted to reporters as he and his co-defendant were led away to return to holding at Insein Prison.