A military tribunal in Burkina Faso on Tuesday handed down a sentence of 30 years to the wife of a general convicted of leading a deadly coup bid four years ago. The prison term imposed on Fatoumata Diendere exceeds the 20-year sentence given to her husband Gilbert Diendere on Monday for masterminding the 2015 plot against the west African country's transitional government. Instigated by soldiers from an elite army unit loyal to ousted president Blaise Compaore, the putsch failed after army-backed protesters stormed the rebels' barracks.

Dozens of defendants, including top generals and politicians, were put on trial over the coup, which killed 14 people and wounded 270. Gilberte Diendere, who had been Compaore's right-hand man and a former head of the elite unit, the Presidential Security Regiment (RSP), was convicted on Monday on charges of murder and harming state security. His wife was found guilty in absentia on Tuesday of similar charges, as well as assault and battery.

According to the military prosecutor, she had "suggested in a phone call to her husband that he start a rebellion from the Po region (in Burkina Faso's south) when she knew that the coup would fail, and that he would incur the maximum penalty". She also gave 10 million CFA francs (15,000 euros) to two of the putschists, Colonel Mamadou Bamba and Traore Abdoul Karim Andre, the prosecution said.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2019