Myanmar Reuters journalists appeal seven-year sentence

Lawyers lodged an appeal Monday to free two Reuters journalists jailed for their reporting on Myanmar's Rohingya crisis, decrying the sentence as a "mistake" that has already resulted in the pair being locked up for a year.

Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were arrested in December 2017 and later sentenced to seven-year prison terms for what prosecutors said was a breach of official secrets law for the possession of classified material on security operations.

Reuters disputed the charge and said the two were set up by police after probing the massacre of 10 Rohingya Muslims during a military crackdown.

Their conviction in September sparked widespread global condemnation, including from US Vice President Mike Pence, who asked civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi to intervene.

But calls for their release have fallen flat inside Myanmar, where Suu Kyi has yet to speak up for the reporters publicly.

Their trial was criticised by rights groups as a sham and payback for uncovering the September 2017 massacre in Inn Din village in Myanmar's Rakhine state.

During the trial a whistle-blowing policeman told the court his superior ordered a sting to entrap the reporters.

On Monday lawyers for the pair submitted an appeal to the High Court.

"This seven-year jail sentence is a mistake," the journalists' lawyer L Khun Ring Pan told the bench, in a hearing attended by embassy officials and free media advocates as well as the wives of the jailed journalists.

"They were trying to find out who was involved with the (Inn Din) case. That's why they tried to meet the police... they did not ask for anything secret."