BURUNDI. COURT SENDS FOUR POLICE MEN TO DEATH ROW OVER WHO OFFICIAL MURDER

May 3, 2005: a Burundi court sentenced four senior police officers to death for their involvement in the murder of the World Health Organisation (WHO) representative in the country in 2001.
Kassi Manlan was murdered and his body dumped at the banks of the River Tanganyika, officials said. The four officers were sentenced to death in absentia while nine others were jailed to terms ranging from two years to life in prison. Burundi's appeals court found the four, Emile Manisha, Gerard Ntunzwenayo, Japhet Ndayegamiye and Aloys Bizimana, guilty of masterminding the murder of Manlan, although they had pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Three others, Martin Nuni, Mugenzi Parfait and Dieudonne Nkurunziza, who had fled Burundi, were sentenced to life in prison for abetting the murder while two others were sentenced to 20 years in jail. The judges ruled that Manlan's office guards will spend ten years in prison while his home guards will serve two. None of the 13 convicted people was in court.
According to Burundi officials, at least three of the 13 had fled the country, others had been released from custody while the trial progressed and others were still in custody. But it was not clear why those still in custody were not in court. No motive for Manlan's killing had ever been officially established, but it was widely believed in Bujumbura that he was about to expose the embezzlement of profits from pharmaceutical supplies by senior government officials. (Sources: Agence France Presse, 03/05/2005)