ABIDJAN
A presidential guard suspected of killing journalist Norbert Zongo has died while serving a twenty-year jail term for another murder.
Sergeant Edmond Koama (33) died on 4 January in a private clinic to which he had been transferred from the Ouagadougou prison. A relative confirmed his death, saying “he had been seriously ill” but did not give details of his sickness.
Last August, a military tribunal sentenced Koama along with the head of the presidential security to 20 years in prison for torturing to death David Ouedraogo, the chauffeur of President Blaise Compaore’s brother. A third bodyguard was also sentenced to 10 years without parole in the same case. During the trial, Koama could be seen taking tablets frequently and he had difficulty sitting on his chair.
The trial was closely watched in Burkina Faso because an independent investigation commission named all three as “serious suspects” in the murder of Norbert Zongo. The charred remains of the journalist, two of his cousins and his driver were found in his car in December 1998. He had been
investigating the murder of Ouedraogo, who had been suspected of stealing
US $31,000 from his employer François Compaore.
Since Zongo’s killing, Burkina Faso has been wracked by political and social unrest, especially violent strikes and street demonstrations.
At the announcement of Koama’s death, Chrisostome Zougmore, a member of Burkina Faso’s Movement for Human and Peoples’ Rights (MBDHP), told IRIN that “the movement, concerned from the beginning about the possible disappearance of one of the culprits, had alerted the authorities and asked them to speed up the investigation” into the Zongo killing.
Human rights groups and opposition parties have said they fear the government might “wipe away” all evidence by causing the “disappearance” of all suspects before they can be tried for Zongo’s murder.
The suspicious death before the August trial of a gendarme who had been involved in hearings of the David Ouedraogo case and the accidental death of a presidential guard involved in torturing Ouedraogo and also named as a “serious suspect” in Zongo’s killing are still fresh in people’s minds.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions