Three journalists and their driver were released Friday after spending nearly two months in prison for using a drone near Myanmar's parliament, their lawyer Khin Maung Zaw said.
The charges against the journalists, which carry penalties of up to three years in jail, were dropped on Tuesday and the judge threw out the case on Thursday.
Lau Hon Meng, a Singaporean, and Mok Choy Lin, a Malaysian, working for the Turkish public broadcaster TRT's English-language station TRT World were supposed to be released from detention together with their local interpreter Aung Naing Soe and driver Hla Tin on Jan.5, after serving two-month prison sentences for illegally flying a drone, their lawyer said.
Khin Maung Zaw said authorities dropped the more serious charges of importing a drone without permission and immigration violations against the foreigners after concluding that the journalists and their staff did not intent to endanger national security.
Authorities also wanted to maintain good diplomatic relations with the countries of the two journalists, he said.
The journalists and their staff were detained on Oct. 27 after attempting to fly a drone over the legislative complex in the capital, Naypitaw.
In a separate case Wednesday, a court extended the detention of two Reuters journalists and set their trial for Jan. 10 on charges of violating state secrets.
Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were arrested on Dec. 12 for acquiring "important secret papers" from two policemen. The police officers had worked in Rakhine state, where abuses widely blamed on the military have driven more than 630,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee into neighboring Bangladesh. The charges are punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
Rights and media groups have criticized the new civilian government led by the Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi for continuing to use colonial-era laws to threaten and imprison journalists. Such laws were widely used by a military junta that had ruled Myanmar to muzzle critics and media.
