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.
