Failed Burundi coup plotters arrested as president returns from Tanzania

Burundian forces have arrested two senior army officers and a police general accused of taking part in an attempted coup as the president, Pierre Nkurunziza, returned to the capital from Tanzania.

Reuters reported that Major General Godefroid Niyombare – the former intelligence chief who launched the coup – had been captured, but other reports said he was still at large. “He has been arrested. He didn’t surrender,” presidential spokesman Gervais Abayeho told the news agency.

Asked what would happen to the plotters who announced the coup when Nkurunziza was abroad, Abayeho said it was up to the justice system: “They will be held answerable.”

State radio said Nkurunziza’s motorcade was cheered by large crowds as it headed for the capital yet protesters pledged to go back to the streets, setting the stage for more clashes.

Niyombare announced earlier in the week that Nkurunziza had been ousted after weeks of civil unrest triggered by the president’s attempt to stand for a third term. The efforts to overthrow Nkurunziza were apparently popular with the public but met with heavy armed opposition from military loyal to the president.

Twelve soldiers who backed the attempted coup against Nkurunziza were killed amid fierce fighting on Thursday when they tried to seize the state radio station, a top army officer said on Friday.

Giving the first death toll for the fight to control the state broadcaster, army chief of staff Gen Prime Niyongabo told state radio that 35 other “mutineers” were wounded and 40 more surrendered. He said four loyal troops were wounded.

Late on Thursday a deputy leader of the coup, General Cyrille Ndayirukiye, told AFP: “Personally I recognise that our movement has failed … We were faced with an overpowering military determination to support the system in power.”

Earlier on Friday, Niyombare told AFP by phone: “We have decided to surrender … I hope they won’t kill us.”

The recent violence has left the country facing its biggest crisis since the end of a 12-year ethnically charged civil war in 2006. Hundreds of thousands of people died in the conflict and the subsequent peace accord ensured that the future army would be split 50-50 between minority Tutsis and majority Hutus.

Nkurunziza, a former rebel leader from the Hutu majority and a born-again Christian, believes he ascended to the presidency in 2005 with divine backing. Opposition and rights groups say it is unconstitutional for him to run for more than two terms.

The president, however, argues his first term did not count as he was elected by parliament, not directly by the people. This was supported by the constitutional court, although one of the judges fled the country, claiming its members received death threats.

Gordien Niyungeko, deputy head of Focode – one of the 300 civil society groups that backed protests against Nkurunziza’s bid for a third term – said his group would continue to demonstrate. “Our movement had nothing to do with the attempted coup,” Niyungeko told Reuters.

More than 50,000 Burundians have fled the violence to Rwanda and other neighbouring countries in recent weeks, with the UN preparing for thousands more refugees.