Tunisian court hands lengthy prison sentences to ex-officials

Opposition person Ghannouchi, ex-prime curate and erstwhile statesmanlike adjutant sentenced amid President Saied’s crackdown connected dissent.

A Tunisian tribunal has handed jailhouse presumption to 21 high-profile politicians and erstwhile apical officials, including absorption person and ex-Parliament Speaker Rached Ghannouchi, the Tunis Afrique Press (TAP) quality bureau reports.

The rulings connected Tuesday are the latest determination successful President Kais Saied’s widening crackdown connected critics and governmental opponents.

Ghannouchi, the person of the Ennahdha enactment who has been successful jailhouse since 2023, was sentenced to up to 14 years successful jail. Several others, including erstwhile Prime Minister Youssef Chahed and ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs Rafik Abdessalem Bouchlaka, were sentenced successful absentia to 35 years.

Nadia Akacha, Saied’s erstwhile main of staff, who was considered a adjacent and influential adjutant to the president, was besides handed a 35-year situation condemnation successful absentia, according to the TAP.

The charges against the defendants screen a wide scope of alleged offences, including forming and joining a “terrorist” organisation and conspiring against interior authorities security.

On Tuesday, Bouchlaka, the erstwhile overseas minister, dismissed the sentences arsenic unserious, saying that the Tunisian authorities has go a “mockery successful beforehand of the satellite with its immaturity, recklessness and craziness”.

“Sooner oregon later, this lying, deceptive coup authorities volition permission similar the dictators, tyrants and fraudsters that near earlier it,” Bouchlaka wrote successful a societal media post.

Many absorption leaders, immoderate journalists and critics of Saied person been imprisoned since helium suspended the elected parliament and began ruling by decree successful 2021 – moves the absorption has described arsenic a coup.

Critics person accused Saied of utilizing the judiciary and constabulary to people his governmental opponents. Many pass that antiauthoritarian gains successful the birthplace of the Arab Spring successful the years since the 2011 gyration that toppled longtime Tunisian person Zine El Abidine Ben Ali are being steadily rolled back.

Saied rejects the accusations and says his actions are ineligible and aimed astatine ending years of chaos and rampant corruption.

Ennahdha denies allegations against the group. The enactment had emerged arsenic 1 of Tunisia’s largest aft the 2011 uprising, and Ghannouchi led a power-sharing statement with precocious President Beji Caid Essebsi to modulation the state to democracy.

Last year, the Tunisian authorities closed down Ennahda’s headquarters successful Tunis. Ghannouchi, 84, is already serving different jailhouse sentences for charges that his supporters accidental are political.

In February, helium was fixed a 22-year sentence for “plotting against authorities security”.

Ennahdha called the ruling “a blatant battle connected the independency and impartiality of the judiciary and a blatant politicisation of its procedures and rulings”.

Source:

Al Jazeera and quality agencies