Burkina Faso’s former president Blaise Compaore will boycott a trial opening next week on the assassination of revolutionary leader Thomas Sankara, where he is the main accused, his lawyers said on Thursday.
Sankara took power in the impoverished Sahel state in 1983, renaming the country the following year from the colonial-era Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, which means “land of the honest men.” Compaore was himself ousted in 2014 by a popular uprising after 27 years in power and fled to Ivory Coast, where he has obtained Ivorian nationality.
Those accused include Compaore’s former right-hand man – General Gilbert Diendere, a former head of the elite Presidential Security Regiment .The pair face charges of complicity in murder, harming state security and complicity in the concealment of corpses. They said their client had never received a summons to be questioned, nor had he received any formal accusation against him, except for the summons to attend the trial.“Although president Blaise Compaore does not recognize the justice of President Roch Kabore , he retains trust in international justice,” they added.
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