The European Court of Human Rights has suspended the extradition from France to Burkina Faso of François Compaoré, brother of deposed President Blaise Compaoré and a defendant in the 1998 murder of investigative journalist Norbert Zongo.
The ECHR announced it had decided to indicate to the French government, under Article 39″ of the ECHR rules governing “interim measures”, that Mr. Compaoré “should not be extradited to Burkina Faso for the duration of the proceedings before the Court.
The French Council of State had earlier on Friday validated the extradition of François Compaoré to Burkina Faso.
France’s highest administrative court rejected François Compaoré’s appeal against the extradition decree signed in March 2020 by then French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe.
This decree “grants the extradition of Mr. Compaoré to the Burkinabe authorities for acts of incitement to murder that are not of a political nature,” said in its decision the Council of State.
Norbert Zongo, a well-known investigative journalist and director of the weekly newspaper “L’Indépendant”, was assassinated on December 13, 1998, while investigating the murder of François Compaoré’s driver. His death caused a political crisis in the “country of men of integrity”.
The ECHR has given France until August 3, at 6:00 pm (16:00 GMT) to provide guarantees that Mr. Compaoré is not at risk of torture, among other things.
To date, François Compaoré has not been charged in his country, unlike three former soldiers of the Presidential Security Regiment (RSP), Blaise Compaoré’s former Praetorian Guard.
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