Burkina Faso jails General Deindere, Djibril Bassole for coup plot

A military court in Burkina Faso on Monday convicted and jailed General Gilbert Diendere and former foreign minister Djibril Bassole on charges of masterminding a coup in 2015.

Deindere was convicted on charges of murder and harming state security and handed a 20-year prison term, while Bassole, accused of treason, was jailed for 10 years.

The coup, carried out by troops loyal to ousted president Blaise Compaore, was thwarted by public protest but at the cost of 14 lives and nearly 300 wounded.

The two generals were the leading figures in a 19-month trial of 84 people accused of the attempted overthrow of Burkina’s transitional government.

The coup was mounted by an elite unit of the army, the Presidential Security Regiment (RSP), on September 16 2015, less than a month before scheduled general elections.

It fizzled out within a week after army-backed street protestors attacked the rebels’ barracks.

Compaore had fled to Ivory Coast in 2014 after 27 years in office marked by assassinations and mounting public unrest.

He was forced out by a revolt sparked by his attempts to extend his grip on power, and a transitional government took the helm.

Diendere, 60, who had been Compaore’s right-hand man and a former head of the RSP, took the head of the putschists’ governing body, the so-called National Council for Democracy.

Bassole, 62, was a foreign minister under Compaore.

Both had denied the charges.

But the prosecution, which had sought life sentences, said the pair had been instrumental in events.

Diendere was “the main instigator in the coup” and Bassole “helped to prepare (it),” said military prosecutor Pascaline Zoungrana.

Among 10 rebel troops who arrested members of the transitional government, a sentence of 19 years was handed down against a non-commissioned officer, Eloi Badiel, and 17 years against another NCO, Moussa Nebie, nicknamed Rambo. The others in this group were given 15 years.

Lieutenant-Colonel Mamadou Bamba, who had read the coup leaders’ statement on television, was given 10 years, five of them suspended.