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Burkina: ex-president Compaoré will be tried for the assassination of Thomas Sankara

2021-04-13T12:34:53.450Z


Former Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaoré, in exile in Côte d'Ivoire, will be tried for the assassination of his predecessor Thomas Sankara, a pan-African icon, during the 1987 coup that brought him to power , lawyers told AFP on Tuesday. Read also: Burkina Faso at the polls under the jihadist threat The case was referred Tuesday to the military court of Ouagadougou, after the confirmation o


Former Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaoré, in exile in Côte d'Ivoire, will be tried for the assassination of his predecessor Thomas Sankara, a pan-African icon, during the 1987 coup that brought him to power , lawyers told AFP on Tuesday.

Read also: Burkina Faso at the polls under the jihadist threat

The case was referred Tuesday to the military court of Ouagadougou, after the confirmation of the charges against the main defendants, including Blaise Compaoré, 34 years after the death

of the

Burkinabè

"

father of the Revolution

", according to defense lawyers and parties civilians.

"

This (Tuesday) morning we attended the deliberation of the investigative control chamber, which referred the case to trial

", told AFP Me Guy Hervé Kam, a lawyer for the civil party.

"

It is essentially Blaise Compaoré and 13 others, accused of attack on state security

", "

complicity in assassinations

" and "

complicity in the concealment of corpses

".

The hour for justice has finally come, a trial can begin.

It is therefore up to the military prosecutor to schedule a hearing date

, ”he said.

Among the accused are General Gilbert Diendéré, one of the main army chiefs during the 1987 putsch, who then became Blaise Compaoré's chief of staff, as well as soldiers from the former presidential guard.

General Diendéré is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence in Burkina Faso for an attempted coup in 2015. More people were initially implicated, but "

many accused have died,

" said Kam.

"

The file is returned

" to the court, the date of the trial "

has not yet been decided

" but it could take place "

very soon

", the warrants to bring defendants not "

still detained having been ordered this morning.

», Said Me Mathieu Somé, lawyer for General Gilbert Diendéré.

Coming to power in a coup d'état in 1983, President Sankara was killed by a commando on October 15, 1987 at the age of 37, during the putsch which brought to power his then comrade in arms Blaise Compaoré.

The death of Sankara, who became a Pan-African figure and nicknamed the “

African Che

”, was a taboo subject during the 27 years in power of Blaise Compaoré, himself overthrown by a popular uprising in 2014.

The affair was revived, after the fall of Blaise Compaoré, by the democratic transition regime.

An arrest warrant was issued against him by the Burkinabe justice in March 2016. But he lives in Côte d'Ivoire, where he fled after his fall.

Having obtained Ivorian nationality, he cannot be extradited and should therefore be tried in absentia.

In February 2020, a first reconstruction of Sankara's assassination took place at the scene of the crime, at the headquarters of the National Revolutionary Council (CNR) in Ouagadougou.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2021-04-13

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