About twenty Burkinabe soldiers on lawsuit at a armed forces judicature over a failed raid on an arms depot concluding twelvemonth accept said they were tortured to extract their confessions.
Almost all of them said they had suffered beatings, humiliation together with nutrient deprivation at the constabulary army camp where they were held after their arrest following the raid in Jan 2016, for which they accept been on lawsuit since Tuesday.
"When I was arrested on Jan 25, 2016, I was abused past times constabulary officers from 2:00pm to 4:00pm," Sergeant Ollo Stanislas Poda said on Saturday.
"I was beaten amongst a moisture rope, threatened amongst an [automatic pistol], handcuffed together with suspended from a tabular array to brand me talk."
Like him, most of the soldiers existence prosecuted for "military conspiracy" said they had been physically abused together with subjected to inhumane treatment.
If you lot arrest soul similar my customer on Jan 21, 2016, and, eventually, it is on March xvi - 52 days later on - that you lot introduce him to an investigating guess together with inwards the meantime, he was detained, nosotros are posing the enquiry most what has been done to him during all this time," said Issouf Kabre, lawyer for soldier Kam Ollo Bienvenu.
The soldiers, including most 10 members of the one-time elite presidential guard (RSP) of resigned leader Blaise Compaore, are too defendant of "removing armed forces equipment past times breaking together with entering" at the arms depot inwards Yimdi, nigh the capital, Ouagadougou.
The arms were allegedly to hold out used to laid upwards on Ouagadougou armed forces prison theatre to liberate one-time RSP caput General Gilbert Diendere together with other soldiers jailed for their alleged interest inwards a failed coup in September 2015.
The coup bid was thwarted past times street protesters together with back upwards from the army, which attacked the plotters' barracks.
Source: News agencies