Just opened on Monday, the trial of the 1987 assassination of the “father of the Burkinabe revolution”, Thomas Sankara, then president of Burkina Faso, has been postponed to October 25 to allow defense lawyers to further consult the file.
Two court-appointed defense lawyers had requested a one-month postponement of the trial “in the name of establishing the truth,” arguing that they had too little time to study “the 20,000 documents in the file.
The president of the Ouagadougou military court, Urbain Méda, accepted their request, but suspended the proceedings for only two weeks.
“This is a day of truth for me, my family and all Burkinabè,” said Thomas Sankara’s widow, Mariam, who attended the opening of the trial, which was eagerly awaited by the families of the victims of the 1987 coup.
As expected, the main defendant, Blaise Compaoré, was not present in court Monday morning.
However, twelve of the fourteen defendants were present at the opening of the trial, which was placed under heavy surveillance by defense and security forces in a country plagued by jihadist violence since 2015.
Among them, General Gilbert Diendéré, 61, one of the main leaders of the army during the 1987 putsch, appeared in military uniform, clearly serene and relaxed.