But the captain was punished for his testimony with a year in prison, and the judge in the case eventually ruled that the Reuters journalists intended to harm the country by sharing its secrets.

At a news conference on Tuesday, lawyers for the journalists said they would do everything in their power to free their clients, who can still appeal or request pardons.

The journalists’ wives, who insisted on the men’s innocence, said they were surprised by the verdict.

“They were doing their jobs as journalists,” said Chit Su Win, Mr. Kyaw Soe Oo’s wife.

Mr. Wa Lone’s wife, Pan Ei Mon, who gave birth to the couple’s first child last month, expressed disappointment over comments about the case by Myanmar’s de facto leader, the Nobel Peace laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi — “the person who we really admired for our whole lives.”

In an interview before the verdict with the Japanese broadcaster NHK, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi said the reporters had been arrested not for covering what she called “the Rakhine issue,” but for breaking the Official Secrets Act. She said that a decision on their guilt or innocence would be up to the judiciary.

Ms. Pan Ei Mon said: “Since I became pregnant, I stayed strong on the hope that Wa Lone would be released. After yesterday’s verdict, it feels like my hopes have been destroyed.”

Stephen J. Adler, the Reuters president and editor in chief, said on Monday in a statement that the verdict against the journalists was “designed to silence their reporting and intimidate the press.”