At least eight people, some of them soldiers who took part in a failed September coup in Burkina Faso, have been charged over the 1987 murder of former president Thomas Sankara, a lawyer for the victim's family said Tuesday.

"Eight or nine people have been charged", said lawyer Benewende Stanislas Sankara (no relation to the late president), adding that they they included "soldiers from the ex-RSP".

The RSP was the acronym of the elite presidential guard behind an abortive coup last month. The regiment has since been disbanded.