Police in Myanmar examined the mobile phones of two Reuters reporters accused of possessing secret documents without a search warrant after their arrests in December, an officer told a court on Monday, in what has become a landmark press freedom case. Prosecution witness Major Aung Kyaw San said police did not have a warrant to search the phones because the reporters were accused under the Official Secrets Act, which gave officers the power to make arrests and begin an investigation without needing prior permission from a court. Judge Ye Lwin last week accepted as evidence printed copies of documents that Major Aung Kyaw San, a police IT expert, said were found on the reporters' phones. Some of the documents came from the Facebook Messenger app, the defence said, and it was not clear the reporters themselves had accessed them. "We don't know anything about the documents they said they found in our phones," Wa Lone told reporters after Monday's hearing.

Source: dna May 28, 2018 13:52 UTC