Sankara’s Assassination : Trial Begins In October

The long awaited trial of the assassination of Thomas Sankara, will kick-off on October 11, 2021 in the nation’s capital Ouagadougou. The information was made public on Tuesday, August 17, by the military prosecutor of Burkina Faso. The former leader, was killed with twelve other people in a coup d’état in 1987, that saw the coming to power of former leader Blaise Campaore now on exile in Ivory Coast. “The military prosecutor at the Ouagadougou military court informs national and international opinion that the trial of those implicated in the case of the assassination of President Thomas Sankara and his twelve companions will open on Monday, October 11, 2021 from 9 am”, indicates the press release. The trial will be relocated from the court premises, “to the Ouaga 2000 banquet hsall” and will be « public », specifies the text. 
In mid-April, the case was referred to the Ouagadougou military court after the confirmation of charges against the main defendants, including ex-President Blaise Compaore, 34 years after the death of the Burkinabe “father of the revolution”. Besides Mr. Compaore, twelve other defendants will be tried for “attack on the security of the State”, “complicity in assassinations” and “complicity in the concealment of corpses”. AFP reports that among the defendants are, General Gilbert Diendere, one of the main army chiefs during the 1987 putsch, who later became Blaise Compaore’s chief of staff, as well as soldiers from the former presidential guard. General Diendéré is serving a 20-year prison sentence for an attempted coup in 2015. According ...