The main suspect in Thomas Sankara murder, former president Blaise Compaore, continues to live big in exile as the former president’s assassination trials fail to take off, 34 years on
By Sam Abuya
The year is 1987, 15 October to be more precise. The then 37-year-old Pan-Africanist and Burkina Faso’s President Thomas Sankara took two bullets straight in the head ending his life in that fateful evening in what turned out to be a bloody military coup.
The president had arrived at the National Council of the Revolution Headquarters for one of the weekly special cabinet meetings at the ‘Conseil de I’Entente’.
Apart from the president’s, the attack at the headquarter claimed more lives – eight soldiers, four bodyguards of the president, drivers of presidential convoy, four civilian members of the special cabinet, and a police officer who had arrived at the villa to deliver mail.
Four years before his assassination, the charismatic Thomas Sankara had paired up with his close ally, Blaise Compaore, to stage another military coup that made Sankara President of the West African country.
Fast forward to 11 October 2021, 37 years since Thomas Sankara was killed in cold blood by people who would take over power, the alleged masterminds of his assassination began in front of a military tribunal in the country’s capital, Ouagadougou, years after they were first accused of killing the former head of state.
Blaise Compaore, who took over power after the killing of Sankara, is among fourteen other people who stand accused of the assassination that shook the entire continent.
Mr. Compaore is, however, not in Burkina Faso. He did not attend the trials that failed to take off again this month in Ouagadougou. He’s in exile in Ivory Coast where he fled after following mass protests that forced him out of power in 2014.
Blaise Compaore has repeatedly boycotted the trials and denied any involvement in Sankara’s assassination.
While speaking to news outlets during the trials, Sankara’s widow Miriam Sankara said: “I’ve been waiting for this for a long time. I want to know the truth, and who did what.”
His brother, Paul Sankara, said: “We’ve waited a long time, all along the 27 years of Blaise Compaore’s regime. Under his rule, we couldn’t even dream of the possibility of a trial.”
In 1997, Miriam Sankara filed an official criminal complaint about the killing of her husband and it took the country’s Supreme Court some 15 years to give a ruling that okayed the investigation. However, some little progress in the investigations would only happen after Blaise Compaore’s regime was overthrown.
In 2016, Burkina Faso officially requested France to release the military documents on Thomas Sankara’s assassination, documents that would be sent in three batches. The last was done in April 2021.
Blaise Compaore continues to live a good life in the neighboring Ivory Coast and is considered to still have some amount of influence in Burkina Faso.
Some analysts have since warned that the Thomas Sankara trials might destabilize the country given that Blaise Compaore still commands some loyalty even within the country’s military.
Efforts by Burkina Faso’s authorities to have Mr. Compaore extradited from his hideouts in Ivory Coast have hit a snag. It is believed that the ex-president enjoys protection from his host.
Mr. Compaore, just like the man believed to have led the hit squad that shot dead Thomas Sankara, Hyacinthe Kafando, were tried in absentia. Kafando’s whereabouts are not known but speculators say he’s in Ivory Coast as well.
While affirming that he’ll not attend the trials through his lawyers, Mr. Compaore termed the process political
The case was adjourned for two weeks after the defense lawyers requested more time to peruse the 20,000 documents in front of them to “prepare well for the case”.
