A spokesman for Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi said on Wednesday he had been informed that the police had almost completed their investigation of two Reuters journalists arrested over a week ago, after which a court case against them would begin.
Zaw Htay said the two reporters, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, would then have access to a lawyer and be able to meet members of their families.
“It will not be long. The investigation is almost done,” he said by phone.
The spokesman said the Ministry of Home Affairs and police told him on Tuesday that the two men were being detained in Yangon, were “in good condition” and had not been subject to “illegal questioning.”
A number of governments and human rights and journalist groups have criticized Myanmar’s authorities for holding the pair incommunicado since their arrest, with no access to a lawyer, colleagues and family members.
Asked if the police were respecting their human rights, Zaw Htay replied: “Yes, yes, I have told them not to do those things.”
“I told them to act according to the law. They guaranteed that they will act only according to the law,” said Zaw Htay, who wasn’t more specific.
Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27, have been in detention since Dec. 12, with no detail on where they were being held as authorities proceeded with an investigation into whether they violated the country’s colonial-era Official Secrets Act.
The act carries a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.
The two journalists had worked on Reuters coverage of a crisis in the western state of Rakhine, where an estimated 655,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled from a fierce military crackdown on militants.
The United States and the United Nations have described the campaign as ethnic cleansing of the stateless Rohingya people.
The Myanmar military has said its own internal investigation had exonerated security forces of all accusations of atrocities in Rakhine.
The two journalists were arrested on Dec. 12 after they were invited to dine with police officers on the outskirts of Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon.
The Ministry of Information said last week that they had “illegally acquired information with the intention to share it with foreign media”.
