YANGON, Myanmar — A court in Myanmar on Monday formally charged two Reuters journalists accused of illegally possessing official information, allowing their case to go to a full trial.

The case of Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo went through several months of hearings to determine if there was enough evidence to support the charge.

The two reporters were charged with violating the Official Secrets Act, a law dating from British colonial times, and if convicted, could get up to 14 years in prison. They were arrested in December and have been detained since because the court denied their request to be released on bail.

They apparently were targeted by the authorities because their work concerned the brutal crackdown by security forces against minority Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar’s Rakhine state. About 700,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since the crackdown began last August.

The two journalists had worked on an investigation of the killing of 10 Rohingya villagers in Inn Din village, for which the government said seven soldiers were sentenced to up 10 years in prison.

The reporters contended they were framed by police, a claim that was supported by testimony from a whistleblower in the police department, Moe Yan Naing. After giving his surprise testimony, he was jailed for violating the Police Disciplinary Act and his family was forced to vacate their housing unit.

ASSOCIATED PRESS