Ekeomah Atuonwu
Former Burkina Faso 🇧🇫 president Blaise Compaore will return from exile for the first time since being deposed in a 2014 rebellion, according to Burkinabe officials, despite his conviction earlier this year for participation in his predecessor’s death.
The reigning military junta invited Compaore to attend a meeting on Friday between interim President Paul-Henri Damiba and numerous previous presidents to address “issues related to the greater interests of the nation,” the presidency said in a statement.
The junta seized power in a January coup justified by escalating Islamist bloodshed, but it has so far failed to quell an insurgency by terrorist groups affiliated to al Qaeda and the Islamic State.
In recent weeks, Damiba has reached out to predecessors, emphasizing the importance of political unity in the face of the threat.
Compaore, 71, fled to Ivory Coast 🇨🇮 following the 2014 rebellion, which was started by his attempts to rewrite the constitution in order to keep himself in office.
AEM reported a military tribunal condemned him to life in jail in absentia in April for his role in the death of his predecessor Thomas Sankara during the coup that brought him to power.
The president stated that the gathering of past leaders of state “does not impede legal prosecutions launched against some of them,” but did not clarify.
An organization of attorneys representing the families of Sankara and others slain during the 1987 coup asked in a statement that Compaore be detained once he arrived in Burkina Faso.
In recent days, Burkinabe media suggested that Compaore would be awarded a pardon for the Sankara assassination as part of the junta’s reconciliation drive.
Neither the Ivory Coast nor Burkina Faso have issued an official statement on the matter. Also participating in Friday’s meeting will be Roch Kabore, the president the junta overthrew in January. Kabore met with Damiba last month for the first time since the coup.
