Three presidential guards arrested

Police have arrested three of President Blaise Compaore’s bodyguards for their suspected involvement in the torture and killing of David Ouedraogo, a driver of the president’s brother, according to news reports. The three - Sergeant Marcel Kafando, deputy of the head of the president’s bodyguards, and sergeants Edmond Koama and Ousseni Yaro - are accused of having killed Ouedraogo in January 1998. They are now being held at the Ouagadougou detention center, AFP reported. A committee of elders mandated to review cases of crimes of impunity in Burkina Faso, urged police on Thursday to arrest the men, AFP reported quoting a statement from the committee. The 16-member body, established earlier in June, includes three former heads of state, traditional and religious leaders. President Compaore set up the committee in response to several street demonstrations that followed the death in December 1998 of a popular investigative journalist, Norbert Zongo. At the time of his death, Zongo had been campaigning vigorously for the arrest of the president’s brother, Francois Compaore, whom Zongo wanted charged with Ouedraogo’s murder, AFP said. An independent commission investigating Zongo’s death said, in May, he had been killed for political reasons and named six soldiers from the president’s security detail as suspects.