Ouagadougou – A court on Friday sentenced the head of a pro-junta group in Burkina Faso to a two-year suspended jail term for calling for the murder of two journalists, legal sources told AFP.
The Ouagadougou high court also fined Mohamed Sinon one million CFA francs (1 500 euros) for the “calls to murder” Newton Ahmed Barry and Alpha Barry, the latter foreign minister from 2016 to 2021.
Last December, Sinon appeared on social media with a plea to kill Newton Ahmed Barry, calling him an “internal enemy … and an accomplice” of France.
The prosecutor said Sinon had also called “to attack” Alpha Barry, who today works for Omega Medias.
Sinon, who fronts the Panafrican Leaders Collective (CLP), was detained on January 20 after organising a protest against the French military presence.
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Sinon admitted making the death call and that his choice of words were “a bit strong”, but claimed not to have named Alpha Barry in his threats.
The defendant was set free after the hearing, the CLP said on social media, hailing a “happy outcome”.
Newton Ahmed Barry was a television news presenter but he resigned after the 1998 murder of investigative journalist Norbert Zongo and three of his colleagues.
Ahmed Barry led the CENI election commission from 2014 to 2021 and today writes on current affairs for national media.
The junta has asked former colonial power France to withdraw its forces from the country as anti-French sentiment grows in the region.
Paris confirmed in late January that its special forces troops, deployed to help fight a years-long jihadist insurgency, would leave Burkina within a month.
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Source: AFP
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