Methods and statutes A 1965 report on worldwide death penalty usage reported that Burkina Faso (then known as the
Republic of Upper Volta) utilized
beheading as their sole method of execution, had not carried out any executions between 1958 and 1962, mandated that all executions be carried out in private rather than in
public, and only handed down death sentences to convicts over 18 years of age. However, Burkina Faso's last official method of execution was the firing squad. The four most recent executions in Burkina Faso were carried out by
firing squad. In 1965, Burkina Faso permitted the death penalty following conviction of
arson,
espionage, murder,
treason, crimes against the country's integrity/independence,
infanticide,
insurrection or rebellion,
looting during war or a national emergency,
parricide,
perjury leading to conviction and execution in a capital case, poisoning, and
sabotage. Lingani and Zongo were two of Compaoré's senior-most government officials. The failed coup had taken place the night before the executions, and Lingani, Zongo, and the two unidentified men were
summarily executed afterwards without facing a trial. The four were put to death by firing squad in Burkina Faso's capital of
Ouagadougou. Following the executions, Secretary of State for Mining and Junior Minister Jean Yado Toe was arrested alongside Soumaila Keita, a former councilman on the National Revolutionary Council that had ruled under
Thomas Sankara, Compaore's predecessor. Toe and Keita were arrested following the formation of a probe to investigate the coup attempt, although they were not executed. In 1996, Burkina Faso adopted a new criminal code including the death penalty as a potential sentence, although the death penalty was never used after the adoption of the new criminal code. In 2015, the country saw a landmark trial regarding another failed coup attempt, in which more than eighty people faced the death penalty if they were convicted by a military tribunal. == Abolition ==