According to a legal source, Burundi’s Supreme Court sentenced deposed Prime Minister Alain-Guillaume Bunyoni to life in prison on Friday for offenses including attempting to topple the government and endangering the president’s life.
Bunyoni was prime minister from mid-2020 until September 2022, when he was ousted, just days after President Evariste Ndayishimiye warned of a “coup” attempt against him.
On the condition of anonymity, a judicial source told AFP that he was “sentenced to life imprisonment (on charges) including plotting against the head of state to overthrow the constitutional regime.”
Among other things, the army commander was accused of utilizing witchcraft to endanger the life of the head of state, compromising national security, destabilizing the economy, and unlawful enrichment.
He had pled not guilty to all counts and claimed that due to a lack of proof, he should be acquitted.
According to a judicial source, the court, which met in the political capital Gitega, also ordered the authorities to seize four residences and buildings, as well as a land parcel and 14 vehicles belonging to Bunyoni.
Five other defendants, including the two principal co-defendants, a police colonel and a senior intelligence operative, received “sentences ranging from three years to 15 years,” according to the source.
The seventh defendant, a driver, was acquitted, according to the same source.
The verdict was given by Chief Justice Emmanuel Gateretse on Friday afternoon, while the court was sitting in session in the prison where Bunyoni was detained.
Bunyoni was detained on the eve of his 51st birthday in April in Burundi’s commercial capital, Bujumbura.
Bunyoni, a former police commander and interior minister, was regarded as the leader of a cabal of military officers known as “the generals” that exercised genuine political authority in Burundi.
Bunyoni, a close associate of former President Pierre Nkurunziza, has been a powerful member in the ruling CNDD-FDD party since it came to power in 2005.
He had long been seen as de facto number two in the regime since a 2015 political crisis.
Ndayishimiye gained control in June 2020 after Nkurunziza died of heart failure, according to Burundian officials, amid widespread speculation that he died of Covid-19.
The international community has praised him for gradually eliminating Burundi’s isolation under Nkurunziza’s turbulent and deadly regime.
However, he has failed to improve the country’s dreadful human rights record, and the country of 12 million people remains one of the world’s poorest.
After launching a bid for a third term in government in 2015, Nkurunziza led a crackdown on political opponents and made Burundi a global pariah amid upheaval, in breach of a peace treaty that ended a deadly civil war in 2006.