APA – Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) The people of Burkina Faso will have to wait a little longer for a trial of the younger brother of former president Blaise Compaore.
In a decision handed down on 7 September 2023, the European Court of Justice ruled against the extradition of François Compaore from France to Burkina Faso.
It found that the current authorities had not provided Paris with sufficient “diplomatic assurances” to justify the extradition of the younger brother of the president deposed by a popular uprising in October 2014.
In particular, the European Court cast doubt on “the validity and reliability of the diplomatic assurances provided,” in view of the “radically changed political context following two military coups,” in particular “by the second transitional government put in place by the new Burkinabe head of state who came to power on 30 September 2022.”
This “government, which was notified of the applicant’s final observations on this point, dated 19 October 2022, made no comment,” the decision states.
The European Court therefore referred to “the risk that François Compaore might not be detained in the section of the Ouagadougou detention and correction center reserved for public figures or that he might be sentenced to an unconditional life sentence” in Burkina Faso.
The younger brother of Blaise Compaore’s, nowliving in exile in Cote d’Ivoire, “cannot therefore be extradited” to Ouagadougou as things stand.
Exiled in France since the fall of the Compaore regime, François Compaore is being prosecuted for inciting the murder of the investigative journalist Norbert Zongo and his three companions.
SD/ac/fss/abj/APA