The former Tunisian PM was pronounced 34 years of sentence, rejects the accusations of “terrorism” | New policies
Former Prime Minister Ali Larayedh and the opposition party Ennahdha denounced the trial as politically motivated.
A Tunisian court sentenced former Prime Minister Ali Larayedh to 34 years in prison for accusations that he facilitated the departure of combatants in Syria – an accusation that the figure of the opposition firmly denies.
“I was neither sympathetic, neither accomplice, nor neutral, nor indulgent towards violence, terrorism,” said Larayedh to the judge on Friday, rejecting what he and his Ennahdha party called for political motivation.
The decision is the last blow to the party of Ennahdha, a major opposition force to President Kais Saied.
Larayedh, who was Prime Minister from 2013 to 2014, has been in detention since 2022.
His conviction occurs only one week after the arrest of the vocal criticism of Saied Ahmed Souab and new prison terms transmitted to political opponents, media personalities and businessmen to various accusations of conspiracy.
According to the TAP press agency, the penalties apply to eight people, with prison conditions ranging from 18 to 36 years. The court did not appoint those sentenced alongside Larayedh.
Ennahdha denies all the allegations related to terrorism, arguing that the case is part of a broader campaign against the dissent which has intensified since Saieed suspended parliament and assumed radical powers in 2021. The government maintains that the judicial power of Tunisia is independent, rejecting allegations of political interference.
Human rights groups, however, say that the repression of the voices of the opposition – including the imprisonment of Souab – marks a dangerous escalation. Many warn that democratic gains in the place of birth of the Arab Spring in the years following the 2011 revolution are not behind.
Growing protests against the Tunisian president
Saied faced demonstrations on Thursday while the opponents went to the streets of Tunis, accusing him of using the judiciary and the police to silence dissent.
The demonstration, the second of a week, comes in the middle of the alarm more and more what criticism consider as an authoritarian drift in the country which sparked the Arab Spring.
By walking towards Avenue Habib Bourguiba, anti -suite demonstrators have chanted slogans, notably “Saiey Go Away, you are a dictator” and “people want the fall of the regime” – echoing the calls which fueled the 2011 uprising which ousted former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Saied supporters held a counterattack on the same boulevard, shouting, “no to foreign interference” and “people want Sieey again”.
The opposition accuses Saied of having undermined democracy won in the 2011 revolution, because he seized additional powers in 2021 when he closed the elected parliament and moved to govern by decree before assuming authority on the judiciary.
