Pierre Buyoya, Burundian president who led two coups, dies at 71 News Services and Staff Reports Pierre Buyoya, a former leader of Burundi who two months ago was sentenced in absentia to life in prison over the 1993 assassination of President Melchior Ndadaye and the massacres that followed, has died in Paris. He was 71. His death was announced Dec. 18 by Burundi’s state-controlled broadcaster. Mr. Buyoya was diagnosed with covid-19 in Mali, where he had served as the African Union’s high representative for Mali and the Sahel until he was forced to resign after his conviction by Burundi’s Supreme Court.