U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it removed Zakaria Songotoua, a 40-year-old former member of Burkina Faso’s dissolved presidential guard accused of participating in the country’s 2015 coup attempt, on April 22. The deportation followed an immigration judge’s order finding him ineligible for immigration status, according to The Daily Wire.
U.S. immigration authorities have deported Zakaria Songotoua, a former member of Burkina Faso’s elite Presidential Security Regiment (RSP), after a U.S. immigration judge ordered his removal.
ICE officers sent Songotoua to Burkina Faso on April 22, The Daily Wire reported, citing the agency and statements it said were provided by ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations in New York.
Songotoua took part in the coup attempt that began on September 16, 2015, when soldiers from the RSP detained members of Burkina Faso’s transitional government, including interim President Michel Kafando and Prime Minister Lt. Col. Isaac Zida, according to contemporaneous reporting by major international outlets.
Accounts of the violence that followed vary by source. Burkina Faso’s government has been cited as reporting 11 people killed and 271 injured in the unrest after the coup attempt, while Amnesty International has said its research found 14 people killed and hundreds wounded by members of the former presidential guard.
The Daily Wire reported that Songotoua left Burkina Faso before trial and was later convicted in absentia by a military court on charges that included murder and an attack on state security, receiving a 30-year prison sentence.
In comments shared with The Daily Wire, Kenneth Genalo, identified as ICE’s New York City Enforcement and Removal Operations field office director, said individuals who engage in such violence “have no place in the United States.”
