By: Vesla Centurion Kals
Former Burkina Faso president, Blaise Compaore, was this week slapped with life in prison jail term for the assassination of predecessor Thomas Sankara in 1987; a ruling many have described as a symbolic victory for the West African region fraught with instability.
The six-month trial saw three out of the 14 men who were prosecuted, acquitted, with others bagging jail sentences ranging from three years to life in prison.
According to local media, the 14 defendants were facing charges of attacking state security, concealment of a corpse and complicity in murder.
Hundreds of witnesses testified how President Sankara and his team were bloodily ejected from power.
Pan Africanists have hailed the ruling, saying it honors the memory Sankara, a once loud voice against Africa’s colonial powers.
In October 1987, Sankara and a dozen others were gunned down during a meeting of the National Revolutionary Council in the capital, Ouagadougou.
His close friend, Compaore, has long been suspected of plotting the killings, despite denying the allegations repeatedly.
Following Sankara’s assassination, Compoare took over the presidency, a repressive rule that would last for the next 27 years.
Throughout his 27-year grip on power, all inquiries into the circumstances of Sankara’s death were suppressed.
In 2014, Compaore was ousted and fled to Ivory Coast, where he has lived in exile ever since.
He was tried in absentia.
Speaking through lawyers last week, the self-exiled former President said he would boycott the trial, citing irregularities in the court proceedings, at the same time claiming to enjoy immunity.
“Beyond the feeling of relief is the hope that is being reborn in Burkina Faso. It’s the hope that is being reborn in Africa,” said Bénéwendé Stanislas Sankara, the Sankara family lawyer.
“To know that no one is untouchable. Everyone can be held to account; the law is the same for everyone.”
The trial took place amid a backdrop of military takeovers throughout the region, including a January coup in Burkina Faso that briefly interrupted the proceedings, VOA.
That the current military rulers have allowed the trial to proceed is a victory on its own, said Anta Guissé an international criminal lawyer who worked on the Sankara family’s legal team.
“The fact that the trial went through the end and that a judgment has been issued — it is a win,” she said. “After the coup in Ouagadougou, we were not sure that the trial could go through to the end. It’s also a win in terms of saying that justice is independent.”
It however remains unclear whether the Ivorian government will extradite Compaore to Burkina Faso to serve his sentence.
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