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Demonstrators demand justice for slain Burkina Faso leader Thomas Sankara

Hundreds of demonstrators in Burkina Faso marked the 30th anniversary of Thomas Sankara's assassination by demanding truth and justice on Sunday for the assassinated revolutionary leader.

(FILES) This file photograph taken on August 4, 1985, shows then President of Burkina Faso Captain Thomas Sankara, as he reviews troops in a street of Ouagadougou, during celebrations of the second anniversary of the Burkina Faso’s revolution. Sankara was killed in October 1987, in a coup d’etat in which President Blaise Compaoré, his former comrade-in-arms, took power. In 1983, Compaoré helped his boyhood friend seize power from then President Jean-Baptiste Ouedraogo. After years of silence on the case, a court is set to re-launch the investigation into the assassination of Thomas Sankara, the father of the Burkinabe revolution killed during the October 1987 coup d’état. / AFP PHOTO / DANIEL LAINE

Hundreds of demonstrators in Burkina Faso marked the 30th anniversary of Thomas Sankara’s assassination by demanding truth and justice on Sunday for the assassinated revolutionary leader.

The young army captain, nicknamed “Africa’s Che Guevara,”, was cut down in a hail of bullets on October 15, 1987 on his way to a special cabinet meeting.

Demonstrators wearing T-shirts bearing the likeness of the anti-imperialist crusader chanted “Truth and justice for Thomas Sankara,” with some waving signs that read “Shame on rotten prosecutors and corrupt judges.”

Sankara was assassinated along with 12 comrades in a putsch that brought his close friend Blaise Compaore to power. Compaore ruled Burkina Faso until October 2014, when he was ousted by a popular uprising.

Compaore, who is in exile in Ivory Coast, is the subject of an international arrest warrant in connection with Sankara’s killing.

About a dozen people have been charged in connection over the assassination including soldiers from the presidential security unit.

“No one… Burkinabe or not, who was involved in these killings should be able to escape punishment,” said Bernard Sanou, president of the Thomas Sankara International Memorial Committee.

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