Prosecutors seek life sentence for Burundi’s ex-premier

By James Tasamba

KIGALI, Rwanda (AA) – Public prosecutors in Burundi asked a court to sentence the country’s former Prime Minister Alain Guillaume Bunyoni to life in prison as his trial concluded Thursday.

Bunyoni has been on trial before the Supreme Court since September, sitting in session at a prison in the capital Gitega, where he is being detained.

He faces seven charges including threatening the life of President Evariste Ndayishimiye, attempting to topple the government, undermining national security and illegal possession of weapons.

“I request that Alain-Guillaume Bunyoni be punished with a sentence of penal servitude for life,” prosecutor Jean-Bosco Bucumi told the court.

The prosecutor is also seeking 30 years in prison for Bunyoni’s six co-defendants, who include an intelligence official and a police officer.

Bunyoni pleaded not guilty to all the charges and asked the court to acquit him, saying there was no implicating evidence in the allegations against him.

The verdict will be read within the next 30 days.

President Ndayishimiye sacked Bunyoni in September last year following allegations of a possible coup against him.

Bunyoni, a former police chief who had long been a senior figure in the ruling National Council for the Defense of Democracy-Forces for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD-FDD) party, was arrested in April this year.