Myanmar has sentenced a group of soldiers to five years of hard labour for the murders of five villagers. The seven soldiers – four of them officers – confessed to the killings after the men's bodies were found with knife wounds in a shallow grave. They had been among a group rounded up by soldiers in June, suspected of helping rebel militia in eastern Shan state. The case is a rare example of a military prosecution in Myanmar. The sentences were handed down in a military court yesterday.