A court in Tunisia sentenced former Prime Minister Ali Laarayedh to 34 years in prison for a series of accusations of terrorism.
He is the president’s last high -level criticism to be imprisoned while activists slam “attempted simulation” in the country.
The 69 -year -old man is an eminent adversary of the Kais President Saied and the chief of the popular Ennadha party – the largest in Parliament – who promotes Islamist ideals.
With seven other people, Laarayedh was accused of having set up a terrorist cell and of helping young Tunisians to travel abroad to join Islamist fighters in Iraq and Syria.
“I am not a criminal … I am a victim in this case,” he wrote in a letter to the court prosecutor last month, according to the AFP news agency.
He was sentenced on Friday.
Laarayedh has always denied any reprehensible act and said that the case was politically motivated.
In recent weeks, At least 40 detractors of the president of Tunisia were sent to prison – including diplomats, lawyers and journalists.
The rights defense groups claim that these trials have highlighted Saied’s authoritarian control over the judiciary, after dissecting Parliament in 2021 and the decision by decree.
Since he was elected for the first time six years ago, the former law professor has rewritten the Constitution to improve his powers.
Laarayedh was arrested three years ago and the activists had called for his release –Including Human Rights WatchWho said that the case seemed to be “another example of the authorities of the Saied president trying to silence the leaders of the Ennahda party and other opponents by singing them as terrorists”.
Ennahdha ruled the North African nation for a short time after a popular uprising nicknamed the Arab Spring.
The protest movement is from Tunisia – where a vegetable seller called Mohamed Bouazizi set fire to him in the despair of government corruption – and mass manifestations quickly spread in the region in the broad sense in 2011.
However, many Tunisians say that the democratic gains made have since been lost, pointing to the authoritarian grip of the current president on power.
However, President Saied rejected criticisms from the interior and outside of the country, claiming that he is fighting the “traitors” and suffers “of flagrant foreign interference”.
