About 20 soldiers have been arrested in Burkina Faso for plotting to free the leader of September’s coup, Gen Gilbert Diendere, officials have said.
The 20 were arrested during a raid in the capital, Ouagadougou, on Monday, Prime Minister Isaac Zida said.
The group had also planned to free other coup plotters, and re-establish the elite presidential guard which Gen Diendere headed, he added.
Gen Diendere was charged in October for staging the short-lived coup.
He gave up power after seven days, following mass protests and international pressure.
Former banker Roch Marc Christian Kabore is about now being sworn in as president, having won elections last month, the first since long-serving ruler Blaise Compaore was ousted in a popular uprising last year.
In his reaction to the arrest of the soldiers, Kabore said that “justice will run its course”.
“We have proceeded with arrests to make them understand that a project such as theirs, even before it has been carried out, is doomed to fail,” Zida said at a press conference.
At least 57 people, including about 20 presidential guard officers, are being held in relation to the September’s incident.
Both Gen Diendere and Compaore, who is in exile in Ivory Coast, have been charged with the 1987 murder of former President Thomas Sankara.
They have denied any wrongdoing.
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