Mr. Compaoré, who was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment in April by a military tribunal in his country, “is expected at the end of the week, he must arrive Thursday or Friday for a short stay” and “be received by the head of state in the context of national reconciliation,” a source close to Burkinabe power told AFP.

Information confirmed by the entourage of the former president.

An emissary of the head of the military junta, author of the January 24 coup, Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Damiba, “met him last week in Abidjan for this purpose”, according to the source close to the government, who specified that the Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara, had also received it.

During his stay, he will reside in a state villa in which President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, who was overthrown in January, had been placed under house arrest, according to her.

“But if his final return is recorded, he will then have to retire to his residence in Ziniaré, his native village”, located northeast of Ouagadougou, she added.

On social media, supporters of the former president called for a rally at Ouagadougou airport on Friday morning.

Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba received ex-president Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, whom he had overthrown, at the end of June, “to defuse the situation”.

It seems that he is trying to create a “sacred union” around him to help him in the fight against the jihadist groups that have bloodied Burkina Faso since 2015 and whose increasingly deadly attacks have multiplied in recent weeks.

– Peptuity for the death of Sankara –

President Compaoré had been forced to go into exile in Côte d’Ivoire in October 2014, the day after violent popular riots and under pressure from the army and the opposition, which opposed his desire to want to stay in the country. power he had held since 1987.

On April 6, he was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment after a six-month trial before the Ouagadougou military court, for his role in the assassination of his predecessor Thomas Sankara, during a coup that brought him to power that year.

This historic trial opened in October 2021, 34 years after the death of Sankara, a pan-African icon.

The lawyers of Blaise Compaoré lawyers had from the beginning denounced “a political trial” before “an exceptional jurisdiction”.

The ex-president was suspected of being the sponsor of the assassination of his former comrade in arms and friend who came to power by a putsch in 1983, which he has always denied.

The death of Thomas Sankara, who wanted to “decolonize mentalities” and upset the world order by defending the poor and oppressed, was a taboo subject during Mr. Compaoré’s 27 years in power.