July 2, 2003: Soe Myint, Editor-in-Chief of Mizzima News was acquitted by the Brassat court in West Bengal, India, today. He had been charged with hijacking a Bangkok-Rangoon Thai Airways flight and forcing it to land at NSC Bose Airport in Kolkata in 1990.

Out of 29 witnessed summoned by the Brasat Court, only five witnesses during a speedy trial which lasted only five days. The judge decided set Soe Myint free when witnesses did not give evidence indicting him.

In the 1990 hijacking , Soe Myint and fellow student Htin Kyaw Oo had been armed with a laughing Buddha statue, which they claimed was a bomb. En route to Kolkata, they told the passengers about what had driven them to seize the aircraft. ''We wanted to explain what was really happening in Burma, because at that time media attention was focused exclusively on the Gulf War", Soe Myint recalls nearly 13 years after the event.

The Indian authorities allowed the hijackers to hold the press conference they had requested. Charges were framed but the men were freed on bail. Soe Myint has spent the past decade working as a journalist in India. In April 2002, the police stormed his home in New Delhi and arrested and charged him for hijacking.