‘We welcome the news regarding Professor Sean Turnell,’ Wong wrote in a message on Twitter, in which she stressed that the economist is ‘the first priority of her government.

Turnel was released on Thursday along with Japanese filmmaker Toru Kubota and British diplomat Vicky Bowman as part of an amnesty, international media confirmed.

The 57-year-old economist was arrested a few days after the coup d’état in February 2021 and was sentenced in September to three years in prison for violating the Official Secrets Act.

Also an associate professor at Macquarie University in Sydney, he was working as an economic advisor to Myanmar’s deposed and imprisoned leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, at the time of the military coup.

Turnell, Kubota and Bowman were the three most high-profile foreigners arrested and convicted by the Myanmar’s junta after the coup and are among some 6,000 prisoners released under an amnesty.

jg/arm/mv/lvp