{"id":48297,"date":"2021-10-14T19:33:08","date_gmt":"2021-10-14T17:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/?p=48297"},"modified":"2021-10-14T19:03:22","modified_gmt":"2021-10-14T17:03:22","slug":"after-34-years-sankara-murder-trial-begins-in-burkina-faso","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/after-34-years-sankara-murder-trial-begins-in-burkina-faso","title":{"rendered":"After 34 years, Sankara Murder Trial Begins In Burkina Faso"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a> &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\">Zimbabwe<\/a>. <\/strong><\/span><b>Reuters<\/b> &#8211; THE trial of 14 people accused of plotting the assassination of Burkina Faso\u2019s former president Thomas Sankara started on Monday, 34 years after he was gunned down in one of the most infamous killings in modern African history.<\/p>\n<p>Sankara \u2014 a charismatic Marxist revolutionary widely known as \u201cAfrica\u2019s Che Guevara\u201d \u2014 was killed in 1987 during a coup led by his former ally Blaise Compaore.<\/p>\n<p>Compaore, who went on to rule the West African nation for almost three decades before he himself was ousted and fled to neighbouring Ivory Coast, has been charged with complicity in absentia. He has denied any involvement in Sankara\u2019s death.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is a moment we have been waiting for,\u201d Sankara\u2019s widow, Mariam Sankara, told journalists as she arrived at the hearing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis trial is needed so that the culture of impunity and violence that still rages in many African countries, despite the democratic facade, stops indefinitely.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The military tribunal opened the proceedings, then adjourned the hearing until Oct. 25, after defence lawyers asked for more time to prepare their case, court officials said.<\/p>\n<p>Compaore\u2019s former head of security, Hyacinthe Kafando, is also being tried in his absence. Twelve other defendants appeared at the hearing in the Ouaga2000 conference centre in the capital, Ouagadougou. They have pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n<p>One of them, Gen. Gilbert Diendere, a former spymaster already serving a 20-year sentence on charges of involvement in a short-lived coup in 2015, attended the trial in camouflage army fatigues.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas Sankara seized power in a 1983 coup at the age of 33 with promises to tackle corruption and the dominance of former colonial powers.<\/p>\n<p>The former fighter pilot was one of the first African leaders to raise awareness about the growing Aids epidemic. He publicly denounced the World Bank\u2019s structural adjustment programmes and banned female circumcision and polygamy.<\/p>\n<p>Sankara won public support with his modest lifestyle, riding to work on a bicycle during his time as a minister and selling the government\u2019s fleet of Mercedes vehicles when he was president.<\/p>\n<p>But critics said his reforms curtailed freedoms and left ordinary people in the landlocked West African country little better off.<\/p>\n<p>Compaore\u2019s lawyers said on Friday that he would not attend the trial, and Ivory Coast has refused to extradite him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Zimbabwe. Reuters &#8211; THE trial of 14 people accused of plotting the assassination of Burkina Faso\u2019s former president Thomas Sankara started on Monday, 34 years after he was gunned down in one of the most infamous killings in modern African history. Sankara \u2014 a charismatic Marxist revolutionary widely known as \u201cAfrica\u2019s Che Guevara\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":48296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,35,12,15],"tags":[1493,2189,19],"class_list":["post-48297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-policy","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-zimbabwe-2","tag-zimbabwe"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>After 34 years, Sankara Murder Trial Begins In Burkina Faso - zimbabwe<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Reuters - THE trial of 14 people accused of plotting the assassination of Burkina Faso\u2019s former president Thomas ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/after-34-years-sankara-murder-trial-begins-in-burkina-faso\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"After 34 years, Sankara Murder Trial Begins In Burkina Faso\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Reuters - 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