Eleven years after the death of Tunisian left-wing opponent Chokri Belaïd in 2013, four men were sentenced to death for his assassination, Aymen Chtiba, deputy prosecutor general of the anti-terrorism judicial center, announced on national television on Wednesday March 27. After eleven years of investigations and legal proceedings and fifteen hours of deliberation, the court of first instance of Tunis also sentenced two defendants to life imprisonment, said Mr. Chtiba. The latter was pleased that “justice had been done” explaining the length of the deliberations by “the nature and volume” of the case.
Sentences of two to one hundred and twenty years’ imprisonment were also handed down for other defendants, while five individuals were acquitted even though they remain accused in other cases. Although the Tunisian justice system continues to regularly hand down death sentences, particularly in terrorism cases, a de facto moratorium has been applied since 1991.
A total of 23 people were charged with the murder in his car and in front of his home on February 6, 2013, of Chokri Belaïd, a 48-year-old lawyer and vocal critic of the Islamo-conservative party Ennahda (“Renaissance”), in time in power in Tunisia.
Assassination claimed by jihadists linked to ISIS
Jihadists allied with the Islamic State (IS) group claimed responsibility for the assassination of Mr. Belaïd as well as that, six months later, of MP Mohamed Brahmi, 58, another figure in the left-wing opposition.
The Tunisian authorities announced in February 2014 the death of Kamel Gadhgadhi, considered the main perpetrator of the assassination of Mr. Belaïd, during an anti-terrorist operation.
MM. Belaïd and Brahmi opposed the policies of Ennahda, a movement which dominated Parliament and the government for ten years after the “jasmine revolution” in 2011, until the coup of the current president, Kaïs Saïed , on July 25, 2021, by which he granted himself full powers. These two assassinations marked Tunisia and constituted a turning point for the country, cradle of the “Arab Spring”, then in the midst of a democratic transition, by causing a deep political crisis.
In June 2022, Kaïs Saïed, who made the assassination of the two “martyrs” a national cause, ordered the dismissal of dozens of magistrates, some of whom he believes are suspected of having obstructed the investigation. The families and defense of the two killed opponents have regularly accused political parties and certain judges over the last decade of obstructing the search for the truth to protect the guilty.
On Wednesday, Chokri Belaïd’s brother, Abdelmajid, praised to Agence France-Presse “a first battle won in this war”, while promising to continue “his fight”. He declared that the case was not yet “closed”, assuring that there would “soon be another trial of other defendants who were in direct contact with Rached Ghannouchi”, leader of Ennahda, imprisoned for a year.
Those close to Mr. Belaïd regularly accused the Ennahda party of having at least been “lenient” towards the discourse of extremist Islamists which had developed at the time. The movement quickly reacted to this first verdict, believing that the police and judicial investigations as well as the convictions handed down “prove the innocence” of Ennahda. The party denounced “a desire of certain ideological currents and political parties to wrongly accuse him” of these assassinations.