Blaise Compaore

Blaise Compaore was a close comrade of Thomas Sankara and helped bring him to power in 1983, then took the presidency himself in the October 1987 coup in which Sankara was assassinated. Compaore long denied responsibility for Sankara's death, but a Burkinabe military court convicted him in absentia in 2022 over the killing; he has lived in exile in Ivory Coast and rejected the verdict. In power he reversed much of Sankara's radical program, rebuilt ties with France and Western partners, and was accused of meddling in regional conflicts in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Ivory Coast. He was forced out by a popular uprising in 2014 after trying to extend his rule.