Belhassen Trabelsi, brother-in-law of former dictator Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, has been released from prison in France without being able to leave France before considering a request for extradition from Tunisia. we learned Sunday from concordant sources.
"In accordance with the law, we canceled the extradition lock" under which Mr. Trabelsi was incarcerated, "because of a procedural problem", announced his lawyers Xavier Nogueras and Marcel Ceccaldi, confirming the release of the 56-year-old man, announced Sunday by the Tunisian Ministry of Justice.
It remains subject to judicial review
This is the second time that the Court of Appeal of Aix-en-Provence ordered the release of the brother-in-law of the former Tunisian dictator, indicted in France especially for "laundering organized gang". He remains subject to judicial review in this case, for which he had to pay a deposit of 100,000 euros, must point regularly to the police station and can not leave the French territory, said his lawyers. "It is clear that the French magistrates have not yielded to political and media pressure and have applied the law" by releasing Belhassen Trabelsi, they have welcomed.
Next judicial stage, the review of the request for extradition made by Tunisia, which should take place in June but for which the defense "does not exclude" from now to ask for a deadline.
In anticipation of this appearance "the Tunisian authorities confirm their full confidence in the independence and neutrality of the French justice for a good application of the law," commented the Tunisian Ministry of Justice in a statement.
Trabelsi had fled to Canada after the Tunisian revolution
On the run since May 2016 after leaving Canada, where he had fled after the Tunisian revolution in January 2011, the brother of former Tunisian ex-First Lady Leila Trabelsi was arrested in mid-March in the south of France and put in review for "laundering organized gang, concealment, use and complicity of false administrative documents as well as for irregular entry of a foreigner on the national territory". Incarcerated at Les Baumettes in Marseille, he was released on March 28th. But to no avail, the public prosecutor's office of Aix-en-Provence having served the following day a warrant for the arrest of a magistrate of Tunis launched on February 22, 2017.
The extradition request launched by the Tunisian authorities invokes a series of decisions handed down by default, including three sentences of 10 years each, handed down between February 2017 and June 2018 for financial crimes. At a hearing, the prosecutor general accused Belhassen Trabelsi of "looting Tunisian companies", alongside Zine el Abidine Ben Ali.