Dubai Telegraph - Verdict due in Burkina leader Sankara's 1987 assassination trial

EUR -
AED 3.833114
AFN 76.567491
ALL 99.259156
AMD 416.113834
ANG 1.876383
AOA 951.75484
ARS 1102.422229
AUD 1.658046
AWG 1.878463
AZN 1.77241
BAM 1.962496
BBD 2.102103
BDT 126.4916
BGN 1.956508
BHD 0.393332
BIF 3082.557627
BMD 1.043591
BND 1.409063
BOB 7.193545
BRL 6.019742
BSD 1.041057
BTN 90.414201
BWP 14.410307
BYN 3.407074
BYR 20454.380029
BZD 2.091266
CAD 1.487999
CDF 2995.105789
CHF 0.951025
CLF 0.026012
CLP 998.192852
CNY 7.627658
CNH 7.601745
COP 4348.851656
CRC 526.943418
CUC 1.043591
CUP 27.655157
CVE 110.640926
CZK 25.050315
DJF 185.393466
DKK 7.459066
DOP 64.565872
DZD 141.659649
EGP 52.823958
ERN 15.653862
ETB 133.710299
FJD 2.411373
FKP 0.838686
GBP 0.83527
GEL 2.942647
GGP 0.838686
GHS 16.084419
GIP 0.838686
GMD 74.61865
GNF 8999.69945
GTQ 8.037308
GYD 218.027661
HKD 8.125878
HNL 26.543221
HRK 7.535612
HTG 136.371646
HUF 401.40678
IDR 17067.145132
ILS 3.733248
IMP 0.838686
INR 90.652299
IQD 1363.866694
IRR 43922.136075
ISK 146.603632
JEP 0.838686
JMD 163.936434
JOD 0.740426
JPY 160.901901
KES 134.738025
KGS 91.261942
KHR 4173.741074
KMF 495.235707
KPW 939.325723
KRW 1510.905541
KWD 0.322302
KYD 0.867569
KZT 525.076636
LAK 22636.780841
LBP 93247.90984
LKR 309.318384
LRD 207.695689
LSL 19.197463
LTL 3.081453
LVL 0.631258
LYD 5.129527
MAD 10.412429
MDL 19.609379
MGA 4846.583383
MKD 61.53006
MMK 2190.454189
MNT 3612.026342
MOP 8.352178
MRU 41.449201
MUR 48.589402
MVR 16.069533
MWK 1805.320449
MXN 21.40199
MYR 4.649176
MZN 66.696045
NAD 19.197186
NGN 1569.372692
NIO 38.314403
NOK 11.70635
NPR 144.675041
NZD 1.844208
OMR 0.401795
PAB 1.041052
PEN 3.863483
PGK 4.185623
PHP 60.68011
PKR 290.673695
PLN 4.157828
PYG 8192.069765
QAR 3.795998
RON 4.977196
RSD 117.110727
RUB 98.098587
RWF 1482.522415
SAR 3.914022
SBD 8.815174
SCR 15.242662
SDG 627.198197
SEK 11.284676
SGD 1.406588
SHP 0.859488
SLE 23.790587
SLL 21883.578854
SOS 595.056039
SRD 36.739585
STD 21600.222927
SVC 9.109169
SYP 13569.828152
SZL 19.195773
THB 35.302069
TJS 11.373745
TMT 3.652568
TND 3.31697
TOP 2.444196
TRY 37.687401
TTD 7.063168
TWD 34.204007
TZS 2709.161534
UAH 43.552422
UGX 3829.958033
USD 1.043591
UYU 45.113282
UZS 13523.142074
VES 63.940076
VND 26559.386313
VUV 129.053828
WST 2.961052
XAF 658.231323
XAG 0.032325
XAU 0.000358
XCD 2.820356
XDR 0.797128
XOF 658.206007
XPF 119.331742
YER 258.810603
ZAR 19.264217
ZMK 9393.568829
ZMW 29.124795
ZWL 336.035818
  • BCC

    -4.6000

    118.72

    -3.87%

  • CMSD

    -0.1800

    23.71

    -0.76%

  • RIO

    0.3900

    62.04

    +0.63%

  • CMSC

    -0.1800

    23.28

    -0.77%

  • BCE

    0.3800

    23.26

    +1.63%

  • NGG

    -0.9000

    60.58

    -1.49%

  • GSK

    0.0600

    36.13

    +0.17%

  • RBGPF

    64.0100

    64.01

    +100%

  • SCS

    -0.0500

    11.93

    -0.42%

  • BTI

    0.2200

    42.74

    +0.51%

  • JRI

    -0.0200

    12.85

    -0.16%

  • RELX

    0.1100

    51.44

    +0.21%

  • AZN

    1.7000

    74.43

    +2.28%

  • RYCEF

    0.0200

    7.69

    +0.26%

  • BP

    0.1300

    34.68

    +0.37%

  • VOD

    0.0900

    8.59

    +1.05%

Verdict due in Burkina leader Sankara's 1987 assassination trial
Verdict due in Burkina leader Sankara's 1987 assassination trial

Verdict due in Burkina leader Sankara's 1987 assassination trial

A court in Burkina Faso will on Wednesday hand down the long-awaited verdict in the prosecution of 14 men accused of assassinating revolutionary leader Thomas Sankara, crowning a six-month trial marked by grim testimony and disrupted by a military coup.

Text size:

Revered among pan-Africanist radicals, Sankara was an army captain aged just 33 when he came to power in a coup in 1983.

The fiery Marxist-Leninist railed against imperialism and colonialism, often angering Western leaders but gaining followers across the continent and beyond.

He and 12 colleagues were gunned down by a hit squad on October 15, 1987, at a meeting of the ruling National Revolutionary Council.

The massacre coincided with a coup that took Sankara's erstwhile comrade Blaise Compaore to power.

Throughout his 27-year reign, Compaore clamped a tight lid on the circumstances of Sankara's demise, fuelling speculation that he was the mastermind.

The historic trial into Sankara's death opened last October, more than 34 years after his death.

- Tried in absentia -

Prosecutors at a military court in the capital Ouagadougou have demanded a 30-year jail term for Compaore, who now lives in exile in neighbouring Ivory Coast.

Compaore is being tried in absentia on counts of attacking state security, concealing a corpse and complicity in a murder.

He denies the charges.

The prosecution is also seeking 30 years for Hyacinthe Kafando, who is suspected of having led the hit squad. Kafando, who later commanded Compaore's presidential guard, is also being tried in absentia.

It is calling for a 20-year sentence for Gilbert Diendere, one of the commanders of the army during the 1987 coup and the main defendant present at the trial.

He is already serving a 20-year sentence over an attempted military coup in 2015.

In its closing statement, the prosecution recounted in grim detail the day Sankara was killed.

As Sankara headed to the National Revolutionary Council meeting, "his executioners were already there," it said.

After Sankara entered the meeting room, the hit squad burst in, killing his guards, the prosecution said.

"The squad then ordered president Sankara and his colleagues to leave the room. They would then be killed one by one."

Ballistics experts told the trial Sankara had been shot in the chest at least seven times by assassins using tracer rounds.

But the defendants said the victims died in a botched attempt to arrest Sankara after he and Compaore fell out over the direction the country's revolution was taking.

- 'Asking for justice' -

The trial was briefly suspended after a coup on January 24 that deposed the elected president, Roch Marc Christian Kabore.

One of the world's poorest countries, Burkina has a long history of political turmoil, but was a relative oasis of peace until jihadist insurgents encroached from neighbouring Mali in 2015.

Their campaign has claimed some 2,000 lives and displaced some 1.8 million people.

The trial resumed after new military strongman Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba restored the constitution and swore an oath.

Compaore, who was deposed by a popular uprising in 2014, has boycotted what his lawyers dismiss as a "political trial."

Prosper Farama, the lawyer representing the Sankara family, said that, as the trial nears its end, the families were finally feeling some relief -- even though "during this trial, no-one confessed or repented. No-one!"

"We ask the court to give the families justice," he said. "We don't want revenge, we're simply asking for justice."

G.Gopalakrishnan--DT