Jean-Bédel Bokassa

Jean-Bédel Bokassa was born 22 February 1921 and took power in the Saint-Sylvestre coup d'état on 1 January 1966, becoming the second president of the Central African Republic. On 4 December 1976 he established the Central African Empire with himself as Bokassa I, an autocratic regime beneath constitutional trappings. Overthrown 21 September 1979, he was tried in absentia and sentenced to death. He returned to the CAR in 1986 to face trial for treason and murder; in 1987 the jury found him guilty of murdering schoolchildren and other crimes, leaving the cannibalism charges undecided under gene…