A court in Burkina Faso has sentenced two men to life imprisonment for their involvement in a 2017 attack on a Turkish restaurant that left 19 dead.
The attack occurred at the Aziz Istanbul restaurant in the capital, Ouagadougou, on August 13, 2017. Two gunmen opened fire on patrons, killing both Burkinabe citizens and foreign nationals.
While no group claimed responsibility for the assault, it followed a series of similar attacks targeting locations frequented by expatriates.
The two defendants, arrested in 2018 following a counterterrorism operation, were sentenced after a November trial. A counterterrorism office confirmed the verdict in a statement on Thursday.
During the 2017 assault, security forces killed both attackers in a swift counter-assault. The victims included 10 Burkinabes and nine foreigners.
This deadly attack was only 200 meters from a 2016 assault on a nearby hotel and cafe that claimed 30 lives, many of them foreigners. In addition, coordinated attacks on military and diplomatic targets in 2018 killed eight Burkinabe soldiers.
Prosecutor La Fama Prosper Thiombiano announced that eight other suspects will face trial soon in connection with the dual attacks, though no date has been set.
Burkina Faso, along with Mali and Niger, has been grappling with a surge of jihadist violence. The ongoing conflict has displaced nearly two million people and claimed over 26,000 lives since 2015, according to the monitoring group ACLED.
