After 34 years, Sankara murder trial begins in Burkina Faso

FILE PHOTO: The grave of former Burkina Faso president Thomas Sankara is seen in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, November 25, 2014. REUTERS/Joe Penney

OUAGADOUGOU (Reuters) -The trial of 14 people accused of plotting the assassination of Burkina Faso's former president Thomas Sankara started on Monday, 34 years after he was gunned down in one of the most infamous killings in modern African history.

Sankara - a charismatic Marxist revolutionary widely known as "Africa's Che Guevara" - was killed in 1987 during a coup led by his former ally Blaise Compaore.