Article author:
Reuters
OUAGADOUGOU — Former Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore returned from exile on Thursday, almost eight years after the uprising, and attended meetings with interim President Paul-Henri Damiba and other former leaders.
Compaole, 71, was convicted of being absent in April for taking part in the murder of his predecessor, Thomas Sankara, and was imprisoned in West Africa. I'm back in the country.
Sankara's family lawyer demanded that Compaole be arrested on arrival, but Burkinabe media has recently speculated that he could be forgiven.
The Ivory Coast, who evacuated in 2014, repeatedly refused to expel him and said he had agreed to return to the Burkinabe authorities.
A helicopter took off for the presidential residence on Thursday afternoon after a compaole plane landed in the capital, Uagadougo, a Reuters reporter at the airport said.
Burkina Faso leader Damiba, who came to power in the January coup, invited Compaole and another former president to a reconciliation summit on Friday amid heightened concerns associated with the rebellion of Muslims in the north. did.
Compaole, who ruled Burkina Faso for 27 years, fled to the Ivory Coast during the 2014 uprising in the wake of an attempt to change the constitution to maintain his power.
He was sentenced in April for his role in the 1987 killing of the revolutionary Marxist Sankara.
(reported by Thiam Ndiaga, written by Sofia Christensen, edited by Nellie Peyton and Angus MacSwan)
