A military court in Burkina Faso has imposed a sentence of eleven years in prison on Lieutenant Colonel Évrard Somda, former head of security and intelligence for interim president Paul Henri Sandaogo Damiba, after finding him guilty of crimes linked to a plot against state security and desertion abroad.
The high-ranking officer, who had been imprisoned since his arrest at the beginning of the year, has been prosecuted in the context of investigations opened into several destabilization attempts denounced by the current military junta led by Captain Ibrahim Traoré. The ruling of the military jurisdiction also includes Somda's expulsion from the Armed Forces of Burkina Faso.
The punishment imposed on Lieutenant Colonel Somda highlights the deep internal division within the Burkinabe Army, in a country that suffered two coups d'état in 2022. Damiba held the interim presidency of Burkina Faso between January 31 and September 30, 2022, after coming to power following the January military coup of that year against elected leader Roch Marc Christian Kaboré. However, he was removed from power in a new putsch led by Traoré.
Following Traoré's seizure of power, the authorities in Ouagadougou have strengthened internal security control and brought numerous army officers and intelligence service members to justice for alleged conspiracies and links with opposition sectors in exile.
Damiba himself was arrested in January in Togo and subsequently extradited to Burkina Faso, where he is accused of being involved in several coup attempts, after Ouagadougou issued an order against him upon the discovery of another attempted putsch against the military junta led by Traoré.
The military junta governing Burkina Faso since the September 2022 coup stated in April 2025 that it had thwarted a "major plot" aimed at "sowing total chaos" and claimed that the alleged masterminds of the operation were in Ivory Coast, in line with Ouagadougou's continuous accusations against the neighboring country for offering refuge to opponents and dissidents.
In parallel, the Burkinabe authorities have been distancing themselves from their former partner France and have approached Russia, while sealing an alliance with the juntas of Niger and Mali to form the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), with the declared objective of strengthening security coordination in the face of the wave of jihadist attacks recorded in this African region in recent years.