Kupleder i Burkina anklaget for del i mordet på Sankara

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The leader of September's short-lived coup in Burkina Faso has been charged with complicity (meddelagtighed) in the mysterious 1987 murder of former President Thomas Sankara, reports BBC online Monday.

Ten other officers have so far been charged in connection with the death of Mr Sankara, then aged 37. General Gilbert Diendere is the most senior official to be charged.

Diendere, who went on to be Mr Compaore's intelligence chief, was seen as a close friend and political ally of Mr Sankara at the time of his death.

Diendere is already in detention, facing charges in connection with September's seven-day coup.

Permission for an exhumation (opgravning) of Mr Sankara´s body was denied during the 27-year rule of his successor Blaise Compaore, who was ousted in an uprising last year. That changed when a transitional government came in power after street protests.

A recent autopsy (obduktion) found that Mr. Sankara´s body was "purely and simply riddled with bullets", his family's lawyer said. Autopsies on the other 12 soldiers buried with him in 1987 revealed they had only one or two gunshot wounds, BBC notes.