The World - News from Nov. 15, 1987
The Supreme Court of the Central African Republic rejected deposed President Jean-Bedel Bokassa’s appeal of his death sentence for crimes committed during a 13-year reign. Bokassa, 66, was convicted June 12 of ordering illegal arrests, of at least 20 murders of political opponents and of diverting huge sums from the state treasury. Bokassa took power in 1965, and in 1977 he declared himself Emperor Bokassa I in a ceremony estimated to have cost the impoverished former French colony more than $100 million. He was deposed in 1979. President Andre Kolingba now has the option of commuting the sentence to life in prison.
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