{"id":4404,"date":"2025-05-03T10:28:29","date_gmt":"2025-05-03T10:28:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/friscotimes.org\/?p=4404"},"modified":"2025-05-03T10:28:29","modified_gmt":"2025-05-03T10:28:29","slug":"tunisia-jails-ex-prime-minister-on-terrorism-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/friscotimes.org\/?p=4404","title":{"rendered":"Tunisia jails ex-prime minister on terrorism charges"},"content":{"rendered":"


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A court in Tunisia has sentenced former Prime Minister Ali Laarayedh to 34 years in prison on a raft of terrorism charges.<\/p>\n

He is the latest high-profile critic of the president to be jailed as campaigners slam “sham trials” in the country.<\/p>\n

The 69-year-old is a prominent opponent of President Kais Saied and leader of the popular Ennadha party – the biggest in parliament – which promotes Islamist ideals.<\/p>\n

Along with seven other people, Laarayedh was charged with setting up a terrorist cell and helping young Tunisians travel abroad to join Islamist fighters in Iraq and Syria.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“I am not a criminal… I am a victim in this case,” he wrote in a letter to the court’s prosecutor last month, according to the AFP news agency.<\/p>\n

He was sentenced on Friday.<\/p>\n

Laarayedh has consistently denied any wrongdoing and said the case was politically motivated.<\/p>\n

In recent weeks, at least 40 critics of Tunisia’s president have been sent to prison<\/a> – including diplomats, lawyers and journalists.<\/p>\n

Rights groups say these trials have highlighted Saied’s authoritarian control over the judiciary, after dissolving parliament in 2021 and ruling by decree.<\/p>\n

Since he was first elected six years ago, the former law professor has rewritten the constitution to enhance his powers.<\/p>\n

Laarayedh was arrested three years ago and campaigners had called for his release –including Human Rights Watch<\/a>, who said the affair seemed like “one more example of President Saied’s authorities trying to silence leaders of the Ennahda party and other opponents by tarring them as terrorists”.<\/p>\n

Ennahdha governed the North African nation for a short while after a popular uprising dubbed the Arab Spring. <\/p>\n

The protest movement originated in Tunisia – where a vegetable-seller called Mohamed Bouazizi set fire to himself in despair of government corruption – and mass demonstrations soon spread across the wider region in 2011.<\/p>\n

However many Tunisians say the democratic gains made have since been lost, pointing to the current president’s authoritarian grip on power.<\/p>\n

Yet President Saied has rejected criticism from inside and outside the country, saying he is fighting “traitors” and suffering “blatant foreign interference”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A court in Tunisia has sentenced former Prime Minister Ali Laarayedh to 34 years in prison on a raft of terrorism charges. 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