Burundi : provisional release of Colonel Michel Kazungu and former Prime Minister Alain Guillaume Bunyoni

SOS Médias Burundi

Gitega, March 12, 2026 — Two figures linked to sensitive legal cases were granted provisional release in Burundi on Wednesday. They include Colonel Michel Kazungu, sentenced to life imprisonment in the case of the failed coup of May 2015, and former Prime Minister Alain Guillaume Bunyoni, also serving a life sentence.

Colonel Kazungu released for medical reasons

Colonel Michel Kazungu, detained in the central prison of Gitega, the political capital of the small east African nation, was authorized to leave the prison for health reasons, according to multiple sources.

According to these sources, the officer is suffering from advanced hepatitis C, a condition requiring specialized medical care.

Since September 2024, his family had been pleading for his transfer to Bujumbura, the commercial capital, where there are better-equipped hospitals and specialists capable of providing appropriate care. This request had not been granted until now.

The decision to grant him provisional release has sparked a mixture of relief and hope among some inmates at Gitega Central Prison.

“This measure rekindles a little hope for us,” an inmate told SOS Médias Burundi on condition of anonymity.

Colonel Kazungu was among the officers convicted in the case of the failed coup of May 2015, an attempt to overthrow the government that deeply affected Burundi and led to a wave of arrests, trials, and convictions within the army, the police, and the opposition.

According to our information, the Attorney General of the Republic and the Director of Internal Intelligence for the National Intelligence Service (SNR) recently visited Gitega to assess the deterioration of his health.

An officer from the former Burundian army (ex-FAB), which was dominated by the Tutsi minority before the integration of Hutu rebel movements following the Arusha Agreement, Michel Kazungu remains one of the military figures associated with the events of 2015.

Alain Guillaume Bunyoni also released

On the same day, former Prime Minister Alain Guillaume Bunyoni was also granted provisional release, according to several concurring sources, including his lawyer, Placide Gatoto, and the director of Gitega Central Prison.

According to a witness, the former strongman of the regime left the Gitega Regional Hospital around 1 p.m. on Wednesday, where he had been admitted for several months. He was in room number 21 of the emergency department, under the supervision of doctors and the resuscitation team.

After his release, the police officers and agents of the National Intelligence Service who had been securing the area left the vicinity of the hospital. General Bunyoni then left the hospital in a V8 all-terrain vehicle, accompanied by his wife, Hyacinthe Niyonkuru.

According to a medical source, his condition remains critical. Paralyzed and very weak, he is reportedly suffering from severe hypertension and advanced diabetes. Sources close to the case also mention a depressive state linked to more than two years he spent in solitary confinement at Gitega Central Prison.

A former pillar of power sentenced to life jail

Former head of the national police, Minister of Public Security, and then Prime Minister, Alain Guillaume Bunyoni was considered one of the most influential figures in the CNDD-FDD, the former Hutu rebellion that became the ruling party in 2005.

On June 27, 2024, the Supreme Court upheld his life sentence. Among the charges against him were :

undermining the state security,

conspiracy to overthrow the institutions of the Republic,

attempted assassination of President Évariste Ndayishimiye,

undermining the proper functioning of the national economy, and

illegal possession of weapons.

The court also ordered the confiscation of his undeclared assets and a fine of 22.7 billion Burundi francs.

A political signal?

For several observers, these two releases could also have a political dimension.

According to a Burundian journalist specializing in the region, President Évariste Ndayishimiye, who recently assumed the rotating presidency of the African Union, is seeking to bolster his international image.

“By releasing a Hutu and a Tutsi, the president wants to position himself as a unifier, as a father of the nation,” he analyzes.

This analyst also believes that these gestures could be part of the strategy for the presidential election scheduled for 2027, in a difficult economic context marked in particular by a prolonged fuel shortage and declining economic indicators.

Gestures of clemency are multiplying

These decisions come a week after the release of two journalists, Sandra Muhoza and Kenny Claude Nduwimana.

Sandra Muhoza’s case had become emblematic of the repression against the press in Burundi. As for Kenny Claude Nduwimana, he received a presidential pardon after writing to the head of state to request clemency, as the latter had publicly suggested last December.

These various measures could mark a new phase of political easing in the small east African nation, even though the judicial authorities have not yet provided any detailed official statements on the exact conditions of these provisional releases.