Burundi's chief prosecutor asked a court to sentence four ex-senior secret service and police to death

Burundi's chief prosecutor asked a court to sentence four ex-senior secret service and police to death for their alleged roles in the 2001 assassination of Kassi Manlan, the country representative of the World Health Organization (WHO). The prosecutor also asked the court to sentence to life imprisonment five others accused of complicity in the murder of Manlan, the Ivorian head of the UN's WHO in Burundi. His body was found floating on the shores of Lake Tanganyika after he went missing from his home in the capital on November 20, 2001. Prosecutor Gerard Ngendabanka asked for death sentences against Emile Manisha, commander of the public security department (PSP), accused of being the "mastermind" of the murder, colonel Gerand Ntuzwenayo, deputy secret service officer, commander Aloys Bizimana and Japhet Ndayegamiye, an officer in the same service. No motive for Manlan's killing has ever been officially established, but it is widely believed in Bujumbura that he was about to expose the embezzlement of profits from pharmaceutical supplies by senior government officials.