This content was posted on April 06, 2022 – 11:58 am April 06, 2022 – 11:58 am
Ouagadougou, 6 April (EFE).- The three main suspects in the assassination of the President of Burkina Faso Thomas Sankara (1984-1987), known as the African “Che Guevara”, were sentenced to life imprisonment in the historic trial more ended today than thirty years of impunity.
In a hearing before a military court in Ouagadougou, two of them, Blaise Compaoré, President of Burkina Faso between 1987 and 2014, and Hyacinthe Kafando, head of Compaoré’s security department in 1987, were sentenced “in absentia” to exile.
The third, General Gilbert Diendéré, the most anticipated defendant at the trial in the absence of Kafando and Compaoré, is already serving a 20-year sentence for leading the attempted coup in Burkina Faso in September 2015.
The deliberations of the military tribunal come after six months of hearings during which more than 110 witnesses were heard and after military prosecutors requested 30-year prison sentences for Compaoré and Kafando and 20 years for Diéndére last February.
Nine other defendants were sentenced to prison terms ranging from three years in prison for the driver of Diéndére on witness tampering charges to 20 years in prison for two of those accused of aiding and abetting murder and aiding and abetting an attack on state security.
Finally, two of the 14 defendants, military doctors who were accused of falsifying public documents because they had stated on Sankara’s death certificate that the cause of death was “natural”, were found not guilty.
The historic trial for Sankara’s murder began on October 11 at a military court in Ouagadougou, almost 34 years after an assassination attempt that went viral around the world.
Sankara was assassinated on October 15, 1987 at the age of 37 along with twelve of his collaborators after a coup squad led by Compaoré raided his office.
This charismatic leader came to power in 1983 in a coup organized with Compaoré, his best friend and comrade-in-arms at the time.
Sankara stood out as a pan-Africanist and revolutionary, inspired by figures such as then-Cuban President Fidel Castro or the Cuban-nationalized Argentine guerrilla fighter and politician Ernesto “Che” Guevara.
The investigation into the murder has been blocked since Compaoré replaced Sankara as head of state, from his death until October 2014, when he resigned and went into exile in neighboring Ivory Coast after unrest broke out when he tried to change the constitution while in power remain.
The probe has not been successful so far, although the interim government formed after Compaoré’s ouster authorized the exhumation of the former president’s body to conduct DNA tests that were inconclusive.
However, experts said the body was shot multiple times, consistent with the testimonies of several witnesses to Shankara’s murder and raising hopes that the trial could take place. EFE
tcs/mrgz/pa/ig
� EFE 2022. The retransmission and redistribution of all or part of the content of the EFE Services is expressly prohibited without the prior and express consent of Agencia EFE SA