BBC World
Seven
soldiers jailed in Myanmar for killing 10 Rohingya Muslim men and boys have
been released early from prison.
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 say.
Reuters,
which uncovered the massacre and first reported the early releases, said the
men were freed in November.
They
are the only people to have been convicted for the 2017 crackdown on Rohingya
in the western Rakhine State.
More
than 700,000 people fled the country as a result of the military operation
there.
On
Monday, a spokesperson for the prison department told reporters that the seven
soldiers convicted over the Inn Din executions were "no longer detained in
our prisons," without giving further details.
One of
the soldiers confirmed to Reuters that he had been released but declined to
comment further, saying: "We were told to shut up."
Two
fellow inmates told the news agency that the release came in November - less
than a year into the 10-year prison term.
The
journalists who exposed the massacre were sentenced to seven years in prison
for their reporting.
Wa
Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were granted a presidential amnesty in May after serving
16 months.
Authorities
launched a probe into the Inn Din killings after the journalists' investigative
work was published.
The
massacre - and the jailing of the journalists investigating it - is seen by
observers as indicative of the army's role in the treatment of Rohingya in
Myanmar, also known as Burma.
What
was the Inn Din massacre?
The
final report by Reuters gathered testimonies from a range of participants,
including Buddhist villagers who confessed to killing Rohingya Muslims and
torching their homes. Accounts from paramilitary police also directly
implicated the military.
A group
of Rohingya men seeking safety on a beach were singled out as their village was
raided, the report said.
Buddhist
men from the village were then ordered to dig a grave and then the 10 men were
killed, at least two hacked to death by the Buddhist villagers with the rest
shot by the army.
This
was thought to be the first time soldiers had been implicated with photographic
evidence and by fellow security personnel.
Who
was jailed?
The
military eventually confirmed the massacre had taken place and in April 2018,
10 soldiers were sentenced to prison for their involvement in the killings.
The
soldiers were to serve 10 years of hard labour for "contributing and
participating in murder".
The two
journalists were arrested before their findings were published, after being
handed documents by two policemen who they had met at a restaurant for the
first time.
They
were charged with violating the country's Official Secrets Act. But a police
witness testified during their trial that the restaurant meeting was a set-up
to entrap the men.
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.