Trial of army mutineers begins in Burkina Faso
Ouagadougou (AFP)
The trial of soldiers implicated in a mutiny that rocked the regime of Burkina Faso's President Blaise Compaore last year opened Tuesday in Ouagadougou, with verdicts handed down in a handful of cases.
In all, 346 people who are currently in detention were due to go to court in a series of trials. They are soldiers, two-thirds of whom have been dismissed from the army, with the exception of about 15 civilians.
According to a source close to the military tribunal, which began by trying five of the accused, the trials will last until the end of the "first quarter of 2013."
Between March and June last year, almost all army barracks mutinied, including that of the presidential guard, as civilians demonstrated in the streets. The events shook the regime more than any other since Compaore came to power in a military coup in 1987.
Tuesday's trial was for five soldiers, one of whom is on the run, who were accused of looting, criminal association, theft, and the illegal possession of weapons and ammunition.
Suspected of taking part in the mutinies of March 22-23 and April 15-16 in the capital of the west African country, the men received light sentences considering that they faced between 10 and 20 years in prison.
Of the four soldiers present, two were sentenced to five and six years in prison, while two others were handed suspended sentences of five and six years. The soldier on the run, for whom an arrest warrant has been issued, was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
The prosecution charged that weapons, notably Kalashnikov assault rifles, were found at the homes of the soldiers, as well as valuable objects.
The violent mutinies at the barracks in Ouagadougou led to the installation of a new government and the appointment of a new army chief of staff.
After a wave of uprisings across the country, accompanied by widespread looting and rapes, Compaore restructured the army and took charge of the defence ministry.
Last month, he said the crisis had passed and told troops "the mutineers had been unworthy of being in the army, and must therefore face justice."
Parliamentary and local council elections are due to take place on Sunday in this poor former French colony, which became independent in 1960. These first polls since the crisis last year are seen as a test for the regime.
Burkina Faso's army is slated to send troops as part of an African force scheduled to be deployed in northern Mali to dislodge armed Islamic extremists, though Compaore, as mediator for west African nations, favours negotiations.
0 comments:
Post a Comment