Burkina ex-president gets life sentence for Sankara killing

A military court in Burkina Faso on Wednesday handed down a life prison term to former President Blaise Compaore over the 1987 assassination of foremost revolutionary leader Thomas Sankara.

Applause erupted in the courtroom as the long-awaited verdict was read out, bringing the curtain down on a case that has afflicted the impoverished and volatile state for 34 years.

Compaore, who lived in exile in Ivory Coast after being toppled by public protests in 2014, and Kafando, who had been on the run since 2016, were tried in absentia.

The court also issued life terms to Hyacinthe Kafando, an officer suspected of having led the hit squad, and General Gilbert Diendere, an army commander at the time of the assassination, which coincided with a coup that brought Compaore to power.

The six-month trial was avidly followed by many in the landlocked Sahel nation, for whom Sankara’s bloody death remains a dark blot on the country’s history.

A fiery Marxist-Leninist who blasted the West for neo-colonialism and hypocrisy, Sankara was shot dead on October 15 1987, little more than four years after coming to power as an army captain aged just 33.

He and 12 colleagues were killed by a hit squad at a meeting of the ruling National Revolutionary Council.

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