The framework of the Islamo-Conservative Party and former Justice Minister Noureddine Bhiri was arrested for “suspicion of terrorism” and later transported to a hospital.
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The facts are worthy of a police novel or a “gangster film”, as described by one of the lawyers of the Noureddine Bhiri Defense Committee, MP, Vice President of the Islamo-Conservative Party Ennahda and Former Tunisian Minister of Justice, arrested on Friday 31 December 2021, in Tunis. According to Saida Akremi, a lawyer and wife of parliamentarians, off-road cars were immobilized in front of their home while the couple was getting out. Cabinet agents would have defeated the member, who would have been forced to enter one of the vehicles before being taken to an unknown destination.
After forty-eight hours without information, the relatives of Mr. Bhiri learned that he had been transported urgently, following a malaise, in a hospital in Bizerte, about sixty kilometers north of Tunis. A former Safe Framework, Fathi Baldi, which had been a councilor of Ali Larayedh, former Minister of the Interior of Ennahda between 2011 and 2013, was also arrested in the same circumstances, according to Tunisian media.
This double arrest increases the political climate in Tunisia, already tense since the introduction, on July 25, 2021, of an exceptional regime by President Kaïs Saïed, who froze the work of Parliament and has arrogated Full powers. Monday, January 3, the authorities ended up getting out of their silence to give some elements of explanation. Without mentioning the names of MM. Bhiri and Baldi, the Minister of the Interior Taoufik Charfeddine mentioned, at a press conference, a “threat to national security” and a “suspicion of terrorism” in the context of a case where Tunisian passports, Certificates of nationality and birth extracts have been given to individuals sought by justice.
The facts were held at the Tunisian Embassy in Vienna in 2013, but the minister gave no details on the identity of the people involved, and did not specify the grounds for the indictment of M . Bhiri. “Recently, suspicious movements have been observed, and it was imperative to make these decisions,” he only indicated. Mr. Charfeseddin mentioned attempts to destabilize the security institution and “calls for rebellion” launched by agents of the department who will, he said, transferred to military justice.
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