US journalist Danny Fenster has been sentenced to 11 years in jail by a Myanmar military court for allegedly spreading false or inflammatory information, his lawyer said on Friday.
Fenster, who was the managing editor of the online magazine Frontier Myanmar, was also found guilty of contacting illegal organisations and violating visa regulations, lawyer Than Zaw Aung said.
The 37-year-old was detained at Yangon international airport in May following a military coup in February. He is one of dozens of local journalists who have been detained by the current military-led government in Myanmar.
With Friday’s sentencing, he has become the only foreign journalist to be convicted of a serious crime since the army overthrew the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and detained dozens of leaders.
But he still faces a verdict for two additional charges, slapped earlier this week in a different court for allegedly violating the counterterrorism law and a statute covering treason and sedition. They carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
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