Historical figure of the Ennahda religious party, Hamadi Jebali would be prosecuted for suspicions of “money laundering”.
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The former Tunisian head of government Hamadi Jebali, stationed between 2011 and 2013 at the head of a coalition government led by Islamist Party Ennahda, was arrested by police Thursday, June 23 in Sousse, in the is Tunisia. If he had distanced himself in recent years with the party leadership, Hamadi Jebali is nevertheless closely associated with the history of the Tunisian Islamist movement, whether in opposition – he was tortured under the dictatorship of President Ben Ali – or in power, in the aftermath of the 2011 revolution.
Hamadi Jebali had resigned from his duties as Prime Minister in March 2013, at the height of the crisis launched in Tunisia by the assassination a month earlier from the anti-ennahda Chokri Belaïd opponent, a figure of the Tunisian left. The anti-Islamist camp had then questioned Ennahda’s responsibility in this assassination, as in the one who would cost life a few months later in Mohamed Brahmi, another emblematic personality of the opposition.
The arrest of Mr. Jebali, who follows that at the end of December of Noureddine Bhiri, ex-minister of justice between 2011 and 2013 and head of the parliamentary group of Ennahda in the Assembly of People’s Representatives (ARP ) Between 2014 and 2019, seems to confirm the intention of the Head of State, Kaïs Saïed, to intensify the judicial offensive against the symbols of the Islamist movement. The former leader was taken to the anti -terrorist brigade of El Gorjani, in Tunis, for suspicion of “money laundering” targeting the charity Namaa Tounes, according to the Tunisian press. The president of the association as well as his predecessor were also arrested.
hunger strike
The details of the facts alleged against Mr. Jebali is however not known at this stage. According to a source close to Ennahda, the former government chief would have started a hunger strike on Thursday evening in order to protest against “police and judicial relentlessness”. His lawyers said that he considers himself as a “abduction state” and refuses to “answer questions from his captors”.
President Kaïs Saïed had arranged full powers by decreeing an exceptional regime on July 25, 2021, while the exasperation of the population was at its peak in the face of the paralysis of institutions, against the backdrop of the health crisis linked to COVID-19. The Head of State, elected in 2019 thanks to an anti -System vote, had notably benefited from growing hostility towards Ennahda, a party associated with all government coalitions since 2011 and in control of the executive between 2011 and 2014 .
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