Tunisia court hands death sentence to defendants in Belaid case

Tunisia’s Court of Appeal issued 23 sentences varying from four years in prison to the death penalty in the case surrounding the assassination of politician, Chokri Belaid, The New Arab plus agencies reported on 15th October.

Chokrie Belaid was a left-wing Tunisian politician that was found shot dead in his car in the country’s capital, Tunis, on 7th February 2013. Belaid was a known opponent of the Islamist Ennahda party. 23 people involved in the incident were arrested and awaiting sentences.

After a judicial process that took over ten years to be concluded, the court upheld its death sentences for Mohamed Aouadi and Ezzedine Abdellaoui, who are set to be hung. Life sentences were also dealt to other participants in the related case, Abderaouf Talbi, Mohamed Akkari, Mohamed Amine Guesmi and Ahmed Melki.

Meanwhile, others involved had their sentences changed. Riadh Ouertani’s term was reported to have been halved from twenty years to ten years. The remaining participants received anywhere between four to thirty years in prison.

Belaid was not the only leftist figure killed that year, however. Fellow outspoken critic of the Ennahda party, Mohamed Brahmi, was fatally shot in front of his wife and children outside his home by two assailants.

The deaths of Belaid and Brahmi sparked immense political turmoil across Tunisia at the time, with protesters claiming the Ennahda-led government was complicit in imposing justice following the murder of their two biggest political opponents. Meanwhile, the Ennahda party claims that the subsequent issuing of these sentences disproves prior claims.

Despite this, it’s been reported that the former prosectutor general who led the preliminary investigations for the cases relating to Belaid and Brahmi was involved in the alleged destruction of evidence. As a result, there are resurfacing doubts from the public relating to the transparancy of the Ennahda government when they were in power.

The New Arab, Maghrebi.org