By Reuters Staff
2 Min Read
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Four Burundian journalists arrested in 2019 and jailed in January for offences including undermining state security have been granted a presidential pardon.
“Under the terms of the present decree, the convicted prisoners Ndirubusa Agnès, Harerimana Égide, Mpozenzi Terence are granted a complete remission of the freedom-depriving sentence,” President Evariste Ndayishimiye said in a decree.
The three all worked for domestic news website Iwacu, as did a fourth journalist who was not mentioned in the decree but who confirmed his release on Thursday.
Willy Nyamitwe, head of information and communication in the president’s office, tweeted on Thursday that the four journalists had written a letter requesting a pardon and the president “has favorably responded to it”.
Moscow, Dec. 18, 2020 (Sputnik/Naija247news) Former President of East African nation of Burundi, Pierre Buyoya, has died at the age of 71 after succumbing to the coronavirus disease, an official said.
Willy Nyamitwe, the Head of Information and Communications Division of Burundian President’s Office, said this on Friday.
“The death of the former President @PierreBuyoya is confirmed, there is no longer any doubt,” Nyamitwe tweeted.
Buyoya ruled the country twice, from 1987-1993, and from 1996-2003.
He came to power after ousting then President Jean-Baptiste Bagaza and setting up the Third Republic of Burundi instead of the Second one.
However, his administration led to internal violence between ethnic communities of Hutu and Tutsi, resulting in thousands of deaths.
Burundi s ex-President Pierre Buyoya dies aged 71 africaleader.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from africaleader.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Date: Dec 18, 2020
Pierre Buyoya, the former President of Burundi who twice seized power in military coups and oversaw a prolonged ethnic civil war that killed 300 000 of his countrymen, has died at 71, the government announced on Friday.
Buyoya died just two months after being convicted in absentia by a court in Burundi of the 1993 murder of a successor, a killing that triggered more than a decade of ethnic bloodletting.
“The death of former president Pierre Buyoya is confirmed. There is no more doubt,” the head of the information and communications division at the office of Burundi’s President Willy Nyamitwe said in a tweet.
Burundi s ex-president Pierre Buyoya dies at 71 18th Dec 2020 | Source: BBC
Burundi s former President Pierre Buyoya has died, according to the head of communications in the president s office, Willy Nyamitwe.
He tweeted that the death of the former President Pierre Buyoya is confirmed, there is no longer any doubt
The AFP quotes family members as saying that the former president died in Paris of Covid-19.
Mr Buyoya, an ethnic Tutsi, was president twice, from 1987 to 1993 and from 1996 to 2003.
He was later involved in the peace process that ended a brutal civil war and led to the election, in 2005, of former Hutu rebel leader Pierre Nkurunziza as president.