A Tunisian court pronounced prison terms aged 13 to 66 to politicians, businessmen and lawyers in a mass trial which, according to opponents, is manufactured and a symbol of the authoritarian domination of the Kais Saied.
Businessman Kamel LTAIF was sentenced to 66 years old, while the opposition politician Khayam Turki received a 48 -year prison sentence, a lawyer for the accused said.
The court also sentenced significant opposition figures, notably Ghazi Chaouachi, Issam Chebbi, Jawahar Ben Mbarek and Ridha Belhaj, at 18 years in prison. They have been in detention since 2023.
Forty people were continued during the trial that started in March. More than 20 have fled abroad since their indictment.
Saied obtained a second five -year term in 2024 with 90.7% of the votes after his power in power in 2019. Rights defense groups say he had full control of the judiciary since he dissolved Parliament in 2021 and began to govern by decree. He dissolved the independent supreme judicial council and dismissed dozens of judges in 2022.
“We are not surprised by these unfair and avengers verdicts who seek to silence the voices of these opposition figures,” said Chaouachi’s son Youssef
“I have never witnessed a trial like this. It is a farce, the decisions are ready, and what is happening is scandalous and shameful,” said defense lawyer Ahmed Souab on Friday before the decision was rendered.
The authorities say that the accused, who also include former officials and former intelligence chief Kamel Guizani, tried to destabilize the country and overthrow Saied.
“The authorities want to criminalize the opposition,” the head of the main national coalition of the Salvation Salvation Salvation, Nejib Chebbi said on Friday. Chebbi was also one of the defendants.
Saiey said that in 2023, politicians were “treats and terrorists” and that the judges who would acquire them were their accomplices.
The opposition leaders involved in the case accuse Saied of having organized a coup in 2021 and say that the case is made to stifle the opposition and establish a repressive rule.
They say that they were preparing an initiative aimed at uniting the fragmented opposition to face the democratic reverse in the cradle of Arab Spring uprisings.
Most of the leaders of the political parties in Tunisia are in prison, including ABIR Moussi, the chief of the free constitutional party, and Rached Ghannouchi, the chief of Ennahda – two of the most eminent adversaries in Saiey.
