Burundi's Supreme Court sentences 4 generals to life over attempted coup

The Burundian Supreme Court issued on Friday afternoon the verdict for 28 suspects in the failed coup plot staged on May 13, 2015, with four facing life jail.

Judges had left the capital Bujumbura, where the Supreme Court is based, for Gitega town, 102 km east of the east African country's capital Bujumbura where all the 28 suspects are detained, to issue the judgment.

According to the judges, four generals were sentenced to "life jail" for being masterminds of the failed coup staged against President Pierre Nkurunziza and other institutions on May 13, 2015 while Nkurunziza was in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania attending an East African Community (EAC) summit.

The four generals are Cyrille Ndayirukiye, who was the deputy-chief of coup plotters, Zenon Ndabaneze, Hermenegilde Nimenya and Juvenal Niyungeko nicknamed Kiroho.

Nine other suspects were sentenced to 30 years in jail.

The verdict also said eight suspects will serve five years in jail while seven other suspects were acquitted.

The head of coup plotters - Major General Godefroid Niyombare - went into exile after security forces failed to capture him when the suspects in the failed coup plot surrendered and declared their defeat on May 14, 2015.

During the trial, Major General Cyrille Ndayirukiye admitted to have attempted to overthrow institutions, stressing that he staged the coup in order to have the Arusha Agreement and the Burundian constitution respected.

Coup plotters were against the candidature of Pierre Nkurunziza in the presidential election which he later won in July 2015, arguing that Nkurunziza's new term was a third term, in violation of the Arusha Agreement and the Burundian constitution that provide a two-term limit for a president of the east African nation. Enditem