Ouagadougou (AFP)

The verdict of the marathon trial of the failed coup of 2015 in Burkina Faso is expected Monday, after 19 months of hearing, the fate of Gilbert Diendéré and Djibrill Bassolé, two former barons of the Compaoré regime, being particularly scrutinized.

The judges of the military court of Ouagadougou of this extraordinary trial, will have to say if the 84 accused, whose generals Diendéré and Bassolé, brains supposed of the putsch, are guilty or not, and to decide the sentences.

Fourteen people died and 270 were wounded when an elite unit of the Burkinabe army, the Presidential Security Regiment (RSP), attempted, on 16 September 2015, to overthrow the transitional government.

This transitional regime was put in place almost a year ago, after the fall of former president Blaise Compaore, driven out by a popular uprising after 27 years in power.

The coup de force of the RSP - Praetorian Guard of the Compaoré regime - against the return to democracy had been defeated after a dozen days by the population and loyalist units of the army.

The prosecution requested life imprisonment against Generals Diendéré and Bassolé, accused in particular of "treason" and "murder". Diendéré is "the main instigator of the coup d'etat" and Bassolé "helped to prepare (...) the coup d'etat", said the military prosecutor Pascaline Zoungrana in his indictment.

Diendéré, 60, former right-hand man of Blaise Compaore, and Bassolé, 62, his former head of diplomacy, both refuted these accusations.

"I did not sponsor, plan, organize or execute" the coup d'etat, Diendéré said at the helm, in military fatigues, in November 2018. The general, who led the RSP in the past, had yet he was the head of the National Council for Democracy, the ruling body of the putschists.

- Beginning of reconciliation? -

Bassolé claims to be gravely ill and has requested medical evacuation. His defense considers that the prosecution "did not provide any evidence against him". She pleaded acquittal.

The prosecutor's office also required 25-year prison sentences against the dozen military members of the commando who arrested members of the transitional government.

Fifteen years of imprisonment were required against Lieutenant-Colonel Mamadou Bamba who had read on television the release of the putschists, as well as against five other defendants.

For the rest of the accused, the prosecutor asked for lighter sentences, between 15 months suspended and five years firm, as well as a release for two other defendants.

Guy-Hervé Kam, one of the civil party lawyers and civil society figure in Burkina Faso, welcomed the trial. "It is a great satisfaction that this trial could be held until the end.Today, we know who did what and especially why," he said.

The outcome of the trial is also expected to begin a reconciliation in Burkina Faso, still divided since the fall of Compaore, in view of the presidential election of 2020, and to tie up the links in the army, strongly shaken by the failed putsch, whose hierarchy has been widely questioned.

Many political and civil actors have called for a "reinstatement" of the ex-RSP officers who were dissolved after the coup, which had the country's first special antiterrorist unit, to fight against the jihadist groups that have increased the number of attacks. the country since 2015, killing more than 500 people.

"The place of General Diendéré is not" in prison, "but at the head of a unit to fight against terrorists," said Herman Yameogo, one of the accused, president of the Union for Democracy and development (UNDD), a small pro-Compaoré party.

© 2019 AFP