Jean Bedel Bokassa

Born in French Equatorial Africa, the son of a village chief, Jean Bedel Bokassa was orphaned at the age of 12. Educated in mission schools, he joined the French colonial army in 1939 as a private. He distinguished himself in the war in Indochina, winning medals and rising to the rank of captain.

When French Equatorial Africa gained its independence as the Central African Republic in 1960, the new president David Dacko invited Bokassa to head the armed forces. In 1966, Bokassa used his position to oust Dacko and declared himself president.

He began a reign of terror, taking all important government posts to himself. He personally supervised judicial beatings and introduced his own version of the 'three-strikes-and-you're-out rule' - thieves would have an ear cut off for the first two offences and a hand for the third.
In 1977, in emulation of his hero Napoleon, he crowned himself emperor of the Central African Empire in a ceremony costing $200 million, practically bankrupting the country. His diamond-encrusted crown alone cost $5 million.

His rule then became even more tyrannical. In 1979, he had hundreds of school children arrested for refusing to wear uniforms made in a factory he owned. He personally supervised the massacre of 100 of the children by his Imperial Guard.

On 20 September 1979, French paratroopers deposed him and re-installed Dacko as president. Bokassa went into exile in France where he had chateaux and other property bought with loot he had embezzled. In his absence, he was tried and sentenced to death. Inexplicably, he returned to the Central African Republic in 1986 and was put on trial. In 1987, he was cleared of charges of cannibalism, but found guilty of the murder of school children and other crimes. The death sentence was later commuted to life in solitary confinement, but just six years, in 1993, he was freed. He died in 1996.