On 20 September 1979, Dacko, with French support, led a bloodless coup that overthrew Bokassa while he was out of the country.

The republic was restored, and Bokassa, who took refuge in Côte d ' Ivoire and France, was sentenced to death in absentia for various crimes, including cannibalism.

Bokassa made an unexpected return in October 1986 and was retried.

The country ’ s first president, David Dacko was overthrown by his army chief-of-staff, Jean-Bédel Bokassa in 1966.

Following Bokassa, David Dacko was restored in 1981, only to be overthrown once again by his new army chief of staff, General André Kolingba after only a few months in power.

The self-declared Emperor of the Central African Republic, Jean-Bédel Bokassa ( Emperor Bokassa I ), was tried on October 24, 1986 for several cases of cannibalism although he was never convicted.

A Western model was sometimes copied by emancipated colonial regimes ( e. g. Bokassa I's short-lived Central-African Empire in Napoleonic fashion ).

Most controversial, however, was his involvement with the Bokassa regime of the Central African Republic and with a diamond smuggling scandal involving the dictator, by which he personally profited.

Valéry Giscard d ' Estaing was at first a friend of its ruler, Jean-Bédel Bokassa ; he supplied Bokassa's regime with much financial and military backing.

This action was also controversial, particularly since Dacko was Bokassa ’ s cousin and had appointed Bokassa as head of the military, and unrest continued in the Central African Republic, leading to Dacko being overthrown in another coup in 1981.

In a related incident, Giscard was reported by the Canard Enchaîné to have accepted diamonds as personal gifts from Bokassa – who fled to France with looted millions from the Central African Republic's treasury, but was still given asylum in France.

Jean-Bédel Bokassa (; 22 February 1921 – 3 November 1996, also known as Bokassa I of Central Africa and Salah Eddine Ahmed Bokassa ), a military officer, was the head of state of the Central African Republic and its successor state, the Central African Empire, from his coup d ' état on 1 January 1966 until 20 September 1979.

Although Bokassa was formally crowned in December 1977, his imperial title did not achieve worldwide diplomatic recognition.

Upon his return to France, Bokassa was stationed at Fréjus, where he taught radio transmissions to African recruits.

After graduating in 1939, Bokassa took the advice offered to him by his grandfather, M ' Balanga, and Father Grüner, by joining the French Army as a private on 19 May.

Bokassa was then stationed as a military technical assistant in Brazzaville and later Bangui before being promoted to the rank of Captain on 1 July 1961.

Due to his relation to Dacko and experience abroad in the French military, Bokassa was able to quickly rise through the ranks of the army, becoming the Central African army's first colonel on 1 December 1964.

Later, Bokassa's officers announced on Radio-Bangui that the Dacko government had been toppled and Bokassa had taken over control.

After Bokassa reciprocated by meeting Tombalbaye on 2 April 1966 along the southern border of Chad at Fort Archambault, the two decided to help one another if either was in danger of losing power.

Bokassa met with Prime Minister Georges Pompidou on 7 July 1966, but the French remained noncommittal in offering their support.

After Bokassa threatened to withdraw from the franc monetary zone, President Charles de Gaulle decided to make an official visit to the CAR on 17 November 1966.

When Banza contacted his co-conspirators on 8 April 1969, informing them that they would execute the coup the following day, Mandaba immediately phoned Bokassa and informed him of the plan.

At his house in Berengo, Bokassa nearly beat Banza to death before Mandaba suggested that Banza be put on trial for appearance's sake.

In 1971, Bokassa promoted himself to full general, and on 4 March 1972 declared himself president for life.

In exchange, Bokassa frequently took d ' Estaing on hunting trips in Central Africa and supplied France with uranium, which was vital for France's nuclear energy and weapons program in the Cold War era.

The " friendly and fraternal " cooperation with France — according to Bokassa's own terms — reached its peak with the imperial coronation ceremony of Bokassa I on 4 December 1977.

Bokassa sat on a two-ton throne modeled in the shape of a large eagle made from solid gold.

The massive worldwide press coverage which followed the deaths of the students opened the way for a successful coup which saw French troops ( in " Opération Barracuda ") invade the Central African Empire and restored former president David Dacko to power while Bokassa fled into exile by airplane to the Ivory Coast ( Côte d ' Ivoire ) on 20 September 1979.

Bokassa, who was visiting Libya on a state visit at the time, fled to Côte d ' Ivoire ( Ivory Coast ) where he spent four years living in Abidjan.

Several of them testified that on their first night in jail, Bokassa visited the prison and screamed at the children for their insolence.

When the defence put up a reasonable doubt during the cross-examination of Dacko that he could not be positively sure if the photographs he had seen of dead bodies were used for consumption, Bokassa's former security chief of the palace was called to testify that he had cooked human flesh stored in the walk-in freezers and served it to Bokassa on an occasional basis.

With the return of democracy to the Central African Republic in 1993, Kolingba declared a general amnesty for all prisoners as one of his final acts as President, and Bokassa was released on 1 August 1993.

Bokassa died of a heart attack on 3 November 1996 in Bangui, at the age of 75.

On 29 February 1988, President Kolingba demonstrated his opposition to capital punishment by voiding the death penalty against Bokassa and commuted his sentence to life in prison in solitary confinement, and the following year reduced the sentence to 20 years.

* 1921 – Jean-Bédel Bokassa, Central African Republic leader ( d. 1996 )

** Jean-Bédel Bokassa of Central African Republic / Empire ( b. 1921 )

On 13 April 1968, in another one of his frequent cabinet reshuffles, Bokassa demoted Banza to minister of health, but let him remain in his position as minister of state.

On 12 April, Banza presented his case before a military tribunal at Camp de Roux, where he admitted to his plan, but stated that he had not planned to kill Bokassa.

On 12 June 1987, Bokassa was found guilty of all but the cannibalism charges.

Bokassa is said to have participated in the massacre, beating some of the children to death with his cane and allegedly ate some of his victims.

Bokassa allegedly participated in the massacre, beating some of the children to death with his cane ; however, the initial reports received by Amnesty International indicated only that the 100 or more school students who died actually suffocated or were beaten to death while being forced into a small jail cell following their arrest.

He was said to have ordered the prison guards to club the children to death, and Bokassa indeed participated, smashing the skulls of at least five children with his ebony walking stick.

Bokassa allegedly participated in the massacre, beating some of the children to death with his cane.