Former Burkinabé president Blaise Compaoré has been sentenced in absentia to life in prison for his role in the 1987 murder of his predecessor Thomas Sankara. There were gasps as the military court delivered the verdict, 35 years after the assassination of the man sometimes known as Africa’s Che Guevara. Compaoré will likely never serve time. He is currently in exile in Ivory Coast after being toppled in a 2014 uprising. The bitterness many Burkinabés feel about his role in Sankara’s death is in part fuelled by his betrayal of a man who was once his close friend.
