Marks on Myanmar journalist's body suggest torture, witnesses say
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Yangon (dpa) - The body of a journalist killed by the Myanmar army last month showed signs that he was badly beaten and possibly tortured, a lawyer representing the dead man's wife said Thursday after witnessing the reporter's exhumation.
Lawyer Robert Sann Aung saw the exhumation of Aung Kyaw Naing on Wednesday along with the reporter's wife, Than Dar, as well as journalists, activists, and members of a human rights commission investigating the death.
"There are blood marks on both sides of his chest, on his skin. His skull is broken and his jaw was completely smashed," he told dpa. Photographs of the body appear to corroborate the observations.
"I believe the post mortem will show torture, but they didn't tell us the answer yet. His wife also told the public it was murder, that he was tortured and murdered," Robert Sann Aung said.
The National Human Rights Commission is investigating the death of Aung Kyaw Naing, also known as Ko Par Gyi, after the army said that he had been killed in army custody in the country's south-east, where he was reporting on clashes between government troops and ethnic rebels.
The army maintains Aung Kyaw Naing was working for a Karen insurgent group, and was shot on October 4 after he tried to grab a soldier's weapon. The body was taken from a shallow grave in Kyaikmayaw township to the hospital in the Mon State capital, Mawlamyine.
Activist Naw Ohn Hla, who also saw the body, said that she saw signs of beating and bullet wounds.
