WORLD : Burkina Faso Coup Attempt Foiled
Burkina Faso radio today announced that a coup plot against President Blaise Compaore by two top ministers in this landlocked West African country, formerly Upper Volta, had been foiled.
The radio said the defense minister, Cmdr. Jean-Baptiste Lingani, and the minister of economic promotion, Capt. Henri Zongo, were executed by firing squad after a coup attempt Monday night.
Officials said Lingani and Zongo--Compaore’s closest collaborators after he toppled his predecessor, Thomas Sankara, in a bloody coup in October, 1987--tried to orchestrate the arrest of Compaore when he returned from abroad Monday evening.
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