Buyoya was accused of the murder of Melchior Ndadaye, who had defeated him to become Burundi's first freely elected president. The former leader dismissed the trial against him as a "sham."
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Peirre Buyoya at the European UN Headquarters in 2015. |
Former Burundian President Pierre Buyoya, who is the current High Representative of the African Union for Mali and the Sahel, "rejected" Wednesday his conviction in absentia in Burundi to life imprisonment for the murder of his predecessor Melchior Ndadaye in 1993.
"We reject these judgements, which can in no way commit
us," a statement from him signed by co-defendants says.
"Following in the footsteps of its predecessor, the new
government has just proved to the world that it follows this line of
lawlessness," they said.
Melchior Ndadaye, Burundi's first democratically elected
president and the first Hutu to come to power, was assassinated in October 1993
in a military coup that would lead the country into a civil war between the
army, dominated by the Tutsi minority, and Hutu rebel groups. It will result in
300,000 deaths until 2006.
Mr. Ndadaye had succeeded Mr. Buyoya, carried by the army in
power in 1987 and who became president again in a new coup between 1996 and
2003, before handing over power to Domitien Ndayizeye, a Hutu, under a peace
agreement signed in 2000 in Arusha (Tanzania).
Mr. Buyoya was convicted of "attack against the head of
state, attack against the authority of the state and attack tending to bring
about massacre and devastation", according to the text which only contains
the operative part (conviction and sentence) of the decision handed down by the
Supreme Court.
The name of Pierre Buyoya had already been cited in
connection with this assassination, without the beginning of any proof being
provided.
Eighteen senior military and civilian officials close to the
former head of state were sentenced to the same sentence, three others to 20
years in prison for "complicity" in the same crimes and only one, the
former transitional Prime Minister, Antoine Nduwayo, was acquitted.
Only five defendants, four retired Tutsi high-ranking
officers and a serving police general, Ildephonse Mushwabure, were present at
the trial.
According to Mr. Buyoya, the trial was conducted "in
violation of the Arusha Accords" and was neither "fair" nor
"equitable" as the rights of the defence were allegedly violated.
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