Prosecutors seek life sentence for Burundi’s ex-premier
Public prosecutors in Burundi asked the court to sentence the country’s former Prime Minister Alain Guillaume Bunyoni to life in prison as his trial concluded on Thursday.
The trial of Bunyoni started in September before the Supreme Court sitting at a prison in the political 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 among others.
“I request that Alain-Guillaume Bunyoni be punished with a sentence of penal servitude for life,” prosecutor Jean-Bosco Bucumi told 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 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.
