Blaise Compaore: Burkina Faso’s ex-president handed life sentence in absentia over Sankara homicide
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The charismatic Marxist revolutionary Sankara was gunned down within the West African nation’s capital Ouagadougou on the age of 37, 4 years after he took energy in a earlier putsch.
Two of Compaore’s former high associates, Hyacinthe Kafando and Gilbert Diendere, had been additionally sentenced to life imprisonment.
All three have beforehand denied involvement in Sankara’s loss of life together with 11 different defendants accused of involvement within the plot. Three of the 11 had been declared harmless and the remaining obtained jail phrases of between three and 20 years.
Compaore was discovered responsible of an assault on state safety, complicity in homicide and concealment of a corpse, the tribunal mentioned in its ruling.
Africa’s ‘Che Guevara’
Sankara, who gained a status as Africa’s “Che Guevara,” took energy on a promise to thwart corruption and post-colonial influences, denouncing overseas support as a management mechanism.
He rolled out mass vaccination towards polio, banned feminine circumcision and polygamy, and was one of many first African leaders to publicly acknowledge the rising AIDS epidemic as a risk for the continent.
A former fighter pilot, Sankara received public assist within the impoverished nation by promoting a authorities fleet of Mercedes, decreasing the pay of well-off public servants and forbidding top quality state journey.
He reduce his personal wage, refused to work with air con and jogged by means of Ouagadougou unaccompanied.
Critics say his reforms curtailed freedoms and did little to complement strange folks. However admiration stays and justice has been long-awaited by Sankara’s household and supporters.
“I think Burkinabe know now who Thomas Sankara was … what he wanted and what those who assassinated him wanted too,” mentioned Sankara’s widow, Mariam Sankara, talking on the courthouse.
A procession and gathering are deliberate later within the day on the spot Sankara was shot, the place a statue of him now stands.
“Today I am very proud to see the culmination of a legal battle of almost 30 years, proud to have a country where justice works,” mentioned Man Herve Kam, a lawyer for Sankara’s household.
