Sankara: Ex-Burkina Faso President, Blaise Compaore sentenced to life imprisonment

Former Burkina Faso President, Blaise Compaore has been sentenced to life imprisonment over the alleged murder of his predecessor, Thomas Sankara.

Records have it that Compaore assassinated Sankara who was the first Burkinabe president during a coup on October 15, 1987.

The case had lingered for decades until when a verdict was delivered in absentia of Campaore.

It has been 35 years since Sankara was killed, he, however, remains one of the iconic figures in West Africa for his sweeping socialist figures and speeches.

He is called the “African Che Guevara”, referring to the Marxist revolutionary and one of the icons of the Cuban Revolution.

He changed the name of the former French colony from Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, which means “the land of the upright”.

During the ruling, two of Compaore’s former top associates, Hyacinthe Kafando and Gilbert Diendere, were also said to have been sentenced to life imprisonment.

It was gathered that military prosecutors in Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou, had requested a 30-year sentence for Compaoré, who was being tried alongside 13 others.

After Compaore was unseated following an uprising in 2014, he fled to the neighbouring Ivory Coast where he was given citizenship.

The military tribunal that presided over the case handed jail terms ranging from three to 20 years to eight other suspects while acquitted three other defendants.