TUNIS: Several officials of Tunisia’s Islamist-inspired Ennahdha party, including its 84-year-old chief Rached Ghannouchi, were handed jail sentences on Tuesday ranging from 10 years to life in prison on terror charges, the party and reports said.
Ghannouchi and other Ennahdha leaders were accused of establishing a “secret security apparatus” in service of the party which won the post-revolution elections in 2011.
Ghannouchi was handed 30 years in prison plus life imprisonment, Tunisian media said, with reports on the sentences confirmed by the party.
Retired military officer Kamel ben Bedoui also received a life sentence along with 32 years in prison, according to reports.
And former prime minister Ali Laarayedh was sentenced to 42 years in prison, reports added.
He has been detained since 2022 and has also been convicted in a separate case for allegedly helping send jihadist fighters to Iraq and Syria.
Tunisia emerged as the Arab world’s only democracy following the ouster of longtime ruler Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011, which kicked off the Arab Spring uprisings.
But since Saied came to power in 2019, local and international NGOs say there has been a regression of rights and freedoms.
Ghannouchi was speaker of parliament at the time of President Kais Saied’s power grab in the summer of 2021.
He was arrested in 2023 and received several sentences in separate cases totalling over 40 years in prison including over “conspiracy against state security” prior to Tuesday’s ruling.
Critics have charged that the rulings against the opposition figure were politically motivated.
Ennahdha on Tuesday said the ruling “lacked the most basic conditions for justice.”
Ennahdha played a key role in Tunisian politics for years before Ghannouchi was hit with the multiple prison terms.
