Ouagadougou,  The Thomas Sankara trial continued on Thursday at the Ouagadougou military court with officer Jean-Pierre Palm at the bar who denies having participated in the assassination of the president of Faso Thomas Sankara.

The comfortable Palm accused answered all the questions of the civil party’s lawyers. According to the prosecution, he is the one who made the arrests for the benefit of the new power following the events of October 15, 1987.

The accused, who recounts having been newly assigned to Bobo-Dioulasso before October 15 and not yet having taken up duty, had returned to Ouagadougou between October 12 and 13.

“I went to Bobo for my daughter’s registration before coming back. On October 15, 1987, I had a toothache and I was accompanied to a dentist in Zone 1 district. It was from there that I heard the gunshots, ”he said.

He mentions having withdrawn to the home of Me Barry, then a student where he spent the night before joining his brother the next morning.

It was subsequently that he was summoned like all the other officers to the Council of the Entente. This is where Commander Lingani allegedly gave him a mission: “He told me to go check it out because the police might want to attack Ernest Ouédraogo,” he explains.

It is this mission that the prosecution considered to be the first mission of Jean Pierre Palm under the new regime.

“We were under an exceptional regime. You refuse to come and automatically you are the enemy, ”Palm retorts. The prosecution spoke of other missions of the colonel of the gendarmerie, still speaking of the arrests.

“I arrested Arba Diallo, Basile Guissou, Somé Charles and another under orders from Commander Boukary Lingani,” said the former sports minister of Blaise Compaoré.

Jean Pierre Palm says he was never aware of any sanction against Blaise Compaoré although he was a member of the National Revolutionary Council (CNR).

It was just rumors and I’m mature enough to believe in it, ”he says.

“The four leaders of the revolution said: If you trust the rumors, you may end up at the border with your suitcases when there is nothing. I have no reason to doubt. Blaise Compaoré never spoke of the other three, ”he added.

Regarding the deactivation of the listening tapes, the officer of the national gendarmerie admits having taken French soldiers there to take stock of the transmissions.

The questioning of Jean-Pierre Palm will continue on Monday, November 8, 2021.

Source: Burkina Information Agency