BURKINA FASO’s former president Blaise Compaore was sentenced to life imprisonment today for the 1987 assassination of revolutionary leader Thomas Sankara.

A military tribunal also sentenced former army commander General Gilbert Diendere and security chief Hyacinthe Kafando to life behind bars.

Sankara came to power in 1983, changing the name of the country from Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, meaning “land of the upright.”

He initiated a raft of progressive measures, including the redistribution of agricultural land. 

Literacy rates rose from 13 per cent to 73 per cent in just four years, while the new government also brought an end to female genital mutilation and forced marriage, with Sankara saying: “There is no true social revolution without the liberation of women.”

The self-proclaimed Marxist-Leninist urged Africa to refuse to pay its debts to Western countries and spoke out at the United Nations against imperialist wars, apartheid and poverty.

Mr Compaore came to power after Sankara’s killing and ruled for 27 years before being forced to resign in 2014 as mass protests swept the country.

Sentenced in absentia — he fled to Ivory Coast in 2014 — he has insisted the charges were politically motivated.