Captain Thomas Isidore Noël Sankara

The President made headline news with his exchanges with the students – only partly scripted – announcing that he would remove the secret classification on all documents on the murder of Thomas Sankara the man in power 31 years ago when François Mitterrand visited Burkina Faso the last French head of state to do so...

Just before Compaoré turned against Captain Thomas Sankara Diallo also saw which way the wind was blowing and backed the 1987 coup that killed the charismatic soldier...

Boukary Kaboré a retired lieutenant colonel nicknamed 'The Lion' (he took part in Thomas Sankara's 1983 coup) ran into resistance from a local group of hunters known as dozos armed with home-made guns...

A sequence of events that illustrates this concerns the arrest warrants for 17 individuals including Compaoré on suspicion of complicity in the murder of his predecessor Thomas Sankara after the October 1987 coup...

The decision – made long ago – was revealed only after Burkinabè judges issued arrest warrants against the former President for high treason attacking the constitution and complicity in the murder of his predecessor Captain Thomas Sankara...

Diendéré has now also been charged as an accomplice to the murder of President Thomas Sankara in 1987...

Gilbert Diendéré the security pillar of Compaoré's fallen regime will be tried for killings related to the failed coup and also for his role in the death of Captain Thomas Sankara in 1987...

Born in 1957 into an influential banking family he was a supporter of Thomas Sankara's 1983 coup which ushered in the country's revolutionary phase but he also went along with Blaise Compaoré's 'rectification' four years later when Sankara was murdered...

His own role dates back to both the advent and the demise of the late President Thomas Sankara...

The other source of anxiety was the expected publication on 19 September of the results of a new autopsy on the body of Captain Thomas Sankara...

The most outspoken left-of-centre presidential candidate Stanislas Bénéwendé Sankara (not related to Thomas Sankara but one of the family's lawyers) condemned the coup as did Kaboré and the man who was to be his main rival Zéphirin Diabré...