Burkina Faso: General Diendéré pleads not guilty at the Sankara trial

Published on : 11/09/2021 – 12:49

General Gilbert Diendéré pleaded not guilty on Tuesday, November 9, before the military tribunal in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, where he is on trial with 13 other people, including former President Blaise Compaoré, for the murder of the former President of Burkina Faso. Thomas Sankara, 34 years ago.

“For all of these four charges, I plead not guilty”, declared at the bar, standing in military fatigues, one of the main heads of the army during the coup of 1987, prosecuted for “attack to the security of the State “” complicity in assassinations “” concealment of corpses “and” subordination of witnesses “.

The general then recounted his day of October 15, 1987, the date of the coup d’état in which Thomas Sankara and 12 of his companions were killed.

He explained that he went in the afternoon to the “sports field” of the headquarters of the military command of the National Revolutionary Council (CNR, in power), when he “heard gunshots”.

Blaise Compaoré, absent from the trial

Gilbert Diendéré then said he spoke with two soldiers he knew and who explained the situation to him. They told him they had “taken the initiative to prevent” Thomas Sankara from arresting their “boss”, Blaise Compaoré.

Sankara’s former right-hand man, Blaise Compaoré, seized power after the October 15 coup. He is being prosecuted on the same charges as Gilbert Diendéré and is suspected of having ordered the assassination. Facts he has always denied.

A version corroborated by General Diendéré, relating his conversation with the two soldiers: “I asked if Blaise was aware of what they did, they replied in the negative”, he explained to bar.

According to him, Blaise Compaoré did not arrive on the scene until the end of the afternoon, three hours after the attack.

>> Long format: Thomas Sankara, an African hero

Driven from power in 2014 by the street, Blaise Compaoré, the great absentee from this trial, lives in exile in Côte d’Ivoire.

As for General Diendéré, he is already in detention and is serving a 20-year prison sentence for an attempted coup in 2015.

With AFP