Burkina Faso’s former president, Blaise Compaoré, who was sentenced in absentia to life in jail for the 1987 assassination of pan-Africanist icon Thomas Sankara, has apologised to the ex-leader’s family.
Compaoré seized power in the West African nation during October 15, 1987 coup that toppled and killed serving leader Sankara.
A fiery Marxist-Leninist who blasted the West for neocolonialism and hypocrisy, Thomas Sankara was gunned down by a hit squad little more than four years after coming to power as an army captain aged just 33.
A Burkina court handed Blaise compaoré a life term in absentia in April for his role in the assassination. Having taken the Ivorian citizenship since his ouster in 2014 he was not extradited nor yet to serve his prison sentence.