DHAKA: Burkina Faso coup leaders have released the country’s prime minister, Yacouba Isaac Zida, from custody.

Al Jazeera has learnt, as the army and the elite presidential guard continued surrender talks.

The prime minister was detained alongside the country’s president and an unknown number of cabinet ministers last Wednesday by presidential guard soldiers who then installed General Gilbert Diendere, a close ally of deposed long-term president Blaise Compaore, as leader of the West African country.

The release of Zida, on Tuesday, came hours after army soldiers entered the capital Ouagadougou without resistance after coup leader Diendere said he would hand over power to a civilian transitional government.

Army leaders began surrender talks late on Monday with the elite presidential guard that staged the coup.

‘All units (of the army mobilized on Monday to march on the capital) reached Ouagadougou’ overnight, Colonel Serge Alain Ouedraogo, deputy head of the Burkinabe police, told the media.

‘We must now secure the surrender of the (coup leaders) without gunfire or bloodshed,’ he said.

BDST: 1303 HRS, SEPT 22, 2015
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