Fourteen men, including a former president Compaore, will go on trial in Burkina Faso from Monday over the assassination in 1987 of Thomas Sankara, the country's revolutionary leader and a pan-Africanist icon.

It will be nearly 34 years to the day since Sankara was gunned down during a putsch led by an erstwhile comrade and close friend -- one of the most shocking episodes in a country well-versed in political brutality.

Suspicions have long been directed at Sankara's successor as president, Blaise Compaore, who ruled the impoverished Sahel state for the next 27 years. Compaore was toppled by a popular uprising in 2014 and fled to neighbouring Ivory Coast, which granted him citizenship. He is the chief accused among 14 figures in the trial, which will unfold at a military court in the capital Ouagadougou.

…A young army captain and Marxist-Leninist inspired by Ghana's Jerry Rawlings, Sankara came to power in a coup in 1983.

Aged just 33, he embarked on a campaign of radical change.

He renamed the country Burkina Faso (the land of honest men) from the colonial-era Upper Volta, carried out a wave of nationalisations and banned female genital mutilation, polygamy and forced marriages.

Four years after Sankara took the helm, he and 12 other leaders were dead.

More at https://www.africanews.com/2021/10/08/burkina-faso-tries-alleged-killers-of-revolutionary-icon-sankara/