⁍ Burundi’s top court has sentenced a former president to life in prison for the 1993 murder of another president.

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⁍ The attack triggered a 10-year civil war in which about 300,000 people were killed.

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⁍ Many of those convicted including Pierre Buyoya did not appear in court or enter a plea as they are abroad.

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– Burundi’s top court has sentenced a former president to life in prison for the 1993 murder of another president who had defeated him in elections, an attack that triggered a 10-year civil war in which about 300,000 people were killed. In an Oct. 19 ruling that was seen by Reuters on Tuesday, the court sentenced Pierre Buyoya and 18 others for the death of Melchior Ndadaye, who had defeated Buyoya to become the central African country’s first freely elected president. Three of those sentenced were handed 20 years in jail. Buyoya is at present the African Union’s High Representative for Mali and the Sahel. Many of those convicted including Buyoya did not appear in court or enter a plea as they are abroad. Ndadaye was shot dead along with several cabinet ministers in an ambush by ethnic Tutsi soldiers four months after he won election, touching off protracted ethnic bloodshed between Burundis and Ndadaye’s Hutu-dominated FRODEBU movement. Burundi was Burundi’s largest political party before Buyoya, a Tutsi, seized power in a 1996 military coup. Also sentenced with Buyoya were former deputy presidents Busokoza Bernard and Alphonse Marie Kadege.