Jailed US journalist Danny Fenster pardoned in Myanmar, sent home

Myanmar military junta said on Monday that US journalist Danny Fenster was 'pardoned' on 'humanitarian grounds'. Fenster's release hascome just three days after he was sentenced to 11 years in jail. He faced charges for incitement and breaches of immigration and terrorism laws. Soon after he was released from prison, he boarded a flight to the US.

"Great news. I heard @DannyFenster is out," Sonny Swe, the publisher of Frontier Myanmar, Fenster's employer, tweeted earlier.

Photos released by military junta's information team showed Fenster, flanked by two Myanmar military officials, signing a document in capital Naypyidaw.

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Fenster's family released a statement and said that they were 'overjoyed'.

Fenster, 37, is managing editor of online magazine Frontier Myanmar and was arrested in May while trying to leave Myanmar, a country in chaos since a Feb. 1 military coup.

The United States welcomed his release, saying he had been "wrongfully detained."

"We are glad that Danny will soon be reunited with his family as we continue to call for the release of others who remain unjustly imprisoned in Burma," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, using Myanmar's former name.

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He was the first Western journalist sentenced to prison in recent years in Myanmar, where the coup against the elected government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi ended a decade of tentative steps towards democracy and triggered nationwide protests.

The military has arrested dozens of journalists among thousands detained after protests erupted nationwide.

(With inputs from agencies)