Twenty-five soldiers have been charged by a court in Lesotho with the 1994 murder of the then deputy prime minister of the tiny mountain kingdom.
The 25 accused were also charged with kidnapping four government ministers at the time.
They are scheduled to reappear in the court in Maseru, capital of the southern African country, in August.
Nine of the soldiers were accused of kidnapping the four politicians on April 13, 1994, and enlisting another 14 soldiers to kill deputy prime minister Selometsi Baholo.
The kidnapping came after clashes between rival factions in the Lesotho army over political allegiances.
Two of the accused protested to journalists that they knew nothing of the incident until they were arrested in 1999.
They raised concerns about the timing of the arrests and charges, which come in the run-up to general elections on May 25.
The deputy leader of the opposition Basotho National Party, Bereng Seksekhonyana, alleged the indictment of the soldiers was a "political ploy" by the ruling party to destabilise the country.