The journalist left Tunis for Lyon on Monday. The former figure of the opposition during the reign of the ex-president of Algeria, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, had been arrested on Friday for illegal entry on Tunisian territory.
By Madjid Zerrouky
The Algerian journalist and opponent Amira Bouraoui will therefore have escaped extradition to Algeria from Tunisia where she had found refuge a few days ago. Working for the private media radio M and former opposition figure during the reign of ex-president Abdelaziz Bouteflika, M Me bouraoui left Tunis, Monday, February 6, on board D ‘A flight from the Transavia company to Lyon, after hours of close negotiations between the French and Tunisian authorities, confirmed to the world a French diplomatic source involved in the discussions that allowed its departure.
The journalist’s fate had been pending on Monday, when those around her expressed the fear that Tunisia plans to expel it to neighboring Algeria, where it would have been arrested from her descent. Binational, it has, thanks to its French nationality, the diplomatic protection of Paris which, after having welcomed it for a few hours at the French Embassy in Tunis, obtained from the Tunisian president, Kaïs Saïed, the authorization to let her join France instead of extradition to Algiers to which it initially seemed to be doomed.
It took multiple Paris interventions to the presidency and the highest Tunisian authorities to prevent his expulsion to Algeria, testifies a diplomatic source. In the opinion of his Tunisian lawyer, M e Hashem Badra, his destiny, these last three days in Tunisia, only held a thread.
Fearing for her safety, Amira Bouraoui had fled Algeria a few days earlier in the direction of neighboring Tunisia. Forbidden to leave the territory by the Algerian authorities, it entered Tunisia by crossing the border illegally, equipped with its French passport. She had tried to take a flight for France from Tunis on Friday, when she was placed in police custody by the Tunisian air and borders for illegal entry on Tunisian territory.
The judge before which she had been referred on Monday released her and returned her French passport at the end of the hearing. However, she was kidnapped at the exit of the magistrate’s office by two judicial police officers, explains her lawyer, M e Hashem Badra. “I am more than satisfied with this happy outcome that I ended up no longer believing, he admits. I did not have much hope. Algeria has the means to put pressure on Tunisia. Between pressures French and Algerian pressures, I feared that the Algerians are more decisive. “
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