A court in Mali on Tuesday ordered the temporary release of a former coup leader Amadou Sanogo from detention, AFP reports.

The court also ordered the release of 12 other detainees held alongside Sanogo.

Sanogo and several soldiers overthrew President Amadou Toumani Toure in 2012 in the wake of a Tuareg rebellion and a subsequent invasion of Mali's north by Islamist militants.

However, the junta gave in to the threat of sanctions by the West African regional bloc ECOWAS and vowed to hand power back to civilians. Sanogo was subsequently detained for six years on charges of killing soldiers who opposed the coup.

It is expected that the release of Sanogo will stave off tensions within the military that would have been aroused by his trial.

Sanogo was among 17 people who went on trial four years ago over accusations of kidnapping and killing 21 elite "Red Berets" who opposed the coup in 2012. The bodies of the soldiers were found in a mass grave in 2013.

It is not clear what will happen next in the trial which is officially ongoing.

A lawyer for Sanogo, Cheik Oumar Konare, who spoke to AFP, said that the court had only ruled on the release and not on their responsibility.

Konare added that justice had been done given the fact that Sanogo had already served six years in pre-trial detention.

Mali has been dogged by violence since 2012 when Islamist militants took over a Tuareg separatist rebellion in the north and seized several cities.

Since then, thousands of people have been killed in the violence, with hundreds of thousands forced to flee their homes.

The country has received help from foreign militaries in the fight against Islamist militancy, including France and the U.S. The U.N. also has around 13,000 peacekeeping troops in the country.

Islamist groups with links to al Qaeda and Islamic State operate in the arid area and carry out frequent attacks on the army and civilians.