The ECHR suspends the extradiction of François Compaoré from France to Burkina Faso

Published on : 08/06/2021 – 22:48

The European Court of Human Rights suspended, Friday August 6, the extradition from France to Burkina Faso of François Compaoré, brother of ousted President Blaise Compaoré and implicated in the assassination in 1998 of a journalist investigation, Norbert Zongo, announced the ECHR.

“The Court decided to indicate to the French government, by virtue of article 39” of the regulation of the ECHR which governs the “provisional measures”, that François Compaoré “should not be extradited to Burkina Faso during the period of the proceedings before the Court “, the legal arm of the Council of Europe indicated in a laconic statement.

The ECHR was seized by the applicant’s lawyers after the validation last Friday of the extradition by the French Council of State. The provisional measures of the Court “only apply when there is an imminent risk of irreparable damage”, underlines the ECHR, which insists on the fact that they “do not presage its subsequent decisions on admissibility or on the substance of the cases in question “.

François Compaoré’s lawyers, François-Henri Briard and Pierre-Olivier Sur, hailed in a press release an “independent and impartial decision”.

“The position of the Court, which now protects Paul François Compaoré from the inhuman and degrading treatment to which he was exposed and ensures him a fair trial, brilliantly contradicts the statements of the President of the French Republic, the opinion of the Court of Appeal of Paris, the judgment of the Court of Cassation and the judgment of the French Council of State, (…) unfortunately unanimous in approving this extradition measure “, they add.

The referral to the ECHR aimed to “defeat the envisaged extradition”

This decision “is not surprising since France itself imposed the suspension of the extradition while waiting for the Court to rule on the appeal”, reacted to AFP Safériba Issa Fayama, director of the cabinet the Minister of Justice of Burkina Faso.

“It is therefore (not) a victory for one party but a wise position of a country respectful of the rights of the parties to assert their cause wherever possible,” he said. he adds.

The French Council of State had validated last Friday the extradition of François Compaoré, 67, to Burkina Faso but his lawyers had seized the ECHR “so that it defeats the envisaged extradition”.

The Strasbourg-based court had given until Tuesday 6 p.m. (4 p.m. GMT) in Paris to provide guarantees that he was not at risk of being tortured, in particular.

François Compaoré is the younger brother of Blaise Compaoré, chased by the streets in October 2014 after 27 years at the head of Burkina Faso.

Recognized investigative journalist and director of the weekly “The Independent”, Norbert Zongo, 49, was assassinated on December 13, 1998, while investigating the murder of François Compaoré’s driver. His death had caused a deep political crisis.

François Compaoré targeted by an arrest warrant issued by Burkina Faso

Norbert Zongo, author of several resounding investigations denouncing bad governance under the Compaoré regime, had been killed with three of his companions. The four remains were found charred in southern Burkina Faso.

In June 2019, the French Court of Cassation rejected François Compaoré’s appeal against his extradition to Ouagadougou, where the journalist’s murder file, filed in 2006 after a “dismissal” in favor of the only accused, was reopened thanks to the fall of Blaise Compaoré.

François Compaoré was arrested at Paris Roissy airport in October 2017, in execution of an arrest warrant issued by the authorities in Ouagadougou.

To date, he has not been charged in his country, unlike three former soldiers of the Presidential Security Regiment (RAP), the former praetorian guard of the deposed President of Bukinabe.

With AFP