Legal proceedings have been initiated against three Burkinabe army officers close to the former head of the junta, Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Damiba.
Captains Sidsoré Ouédraogo, Hassan Diallo and Charles Ouédraogo, who had accompanied Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Damiba to Lomé since the 30 September putsch, were arrested by Togolese authorities and handed over to Burkina authorities. These officers are pilots who had evacuated Damiba to Togo on board an army aircraft and had not returned to the country.
Legal proceedings are underway against them, a source in the military justice system told APA. The Agence d’information du Burkina (AIB) said they were “accused of stealing an aircraft, desertion and preparing a plot against the new Burkinabe authorities from their land of exile.”
“Messages intercepted by the men of President Ibrahim Traoré would have betrayed the three captains on their intentions to fight the new authorities. This led Lomé to send them back to their country,” reported the private radio Oméga Fm.
Captain Sidsoré Ouédraogo is the one who read the declaration of Lieutenant Colonel Damiba’s coup d’état on January 24, 2022, marking the end of the regime of Roch Marc Christian Kaboré.
Sources see the hand of the deposed president, Paul-Henri Damiba behind the actions of the captains, while one of the conditions of his exile in Lomé is that he does not try “anything that can destabilize the new authorities” of his country.
The day after his fall, Lieutenant-Colonel Damiba attacked the new strongman of Faso, Captain Ibrahim Traoré and his comrades, accusing them of having taken power for “individualistic and subjective motivations.” For their part, the latter had explained the removal of Damiba by his “risky choices that have gradually weakened the security system” of the country, plagued by jihadist groups for seven years.
Captain Traoré, 34, will lead a 21-month transition, starting on October 2, 2022, according to a Charter adopted in mid-October by the nation’s active forces.
DS/ac/lb/abj/APA