Prominent Tunisian opposition figure Chokri Belaid was assassinated on February 6, 2013 (Al Jazeera)

Tunisia -

It does not seem that the rulings issued by the Tunisian Court of First Instance against 23 defendants in the case of the assassination of leftist politician Chokri Belaid will quickly close the file. While the Ennahda movement claimed its innocence following the issuance of the rulings, its opponents insist that the rulings do not close the case, but rather open the door to uncovering those who masterminded the crime. .

In the early hours of Wednesday morning, the First Assistant to the Public Prosecutor at the Judicial Center for Combating Terrorism, Ayman Shatiba, announced the court’s decision to execute 4 defendants, namely Izz al-Din Abdel-Lawi, Muhammad Amin al-Qasimi, Muhammad al-Akkari, and Muhammad al-Awadi.

He also announced life imprisonment for other defendants and imprisonment for a period ranging from two to 120 years against others, not hearing the case against 5 defendants due to them committing the same actions in other terrorist cases, and subjecting all defendants to administrative control.

Innocence evidence

The issuance of these rulings comes after the completion of research by the court and following the interrogation of the defendants in a session on February 6 of last year, listening to the pleadings of Chokri Belaid’s defense on March 15th of this month, and completing listening to the arguments of the Public Prosecution and the defendants’ lawyers on the 22nd of this month. .

Regarding the reactions of the Ennahdha movement, whose opponents have long accused it of being behind the plotting of the assassination, its spokesman Imady Khemiri says that the issuance of these rulings definitively confirms the movement’s innocence of all the “alleged” charges that Belaid’s defense team and ideological parties sought to unjustly attach to it.

He added to Al Jazeera Net that the goal of directing these accusations against Ennahda was to remove it from power at that time after it won the electoral ballot in a democratic manner, accusing the defense team of trading in Belaid's blood and exploiting any occasion "to repeat the cycle of falsely accusing the movement because of its ideological hostility to Ennahda."

Al-Khamiri confirms that the decision to conclude investigations into this case by the investigating judge did not include the name of any leader or member of the Ennahda movement, whether from near or far, explaining that the rulings issued do not condemn any name from the movement, which proves its complete innocence of the “hostile and tendentious” accusations.

The assassination of lawyer and Secretary-General of the United Democratic Patriots Party (left), Chokri Belaid, who was shot dead in his car by two people riding a motorcycle in front of his house in the capital, Tunis, on February 6, 2013, plunged the country into a major political crisis, and accusations were leveled at the Ennahda movement.

Former representative of the People's Movement, Mohamed Brahmi, was assassinated on July 25, 2023 (Al Jazeera)

Storm crisis

This crisis prompted the Prime Minister and former Secretary-General of the movement, Hamadi Jebali, to resign, and he was later succeeded by Ennahdha leader Ali Al-Arayedh. Following Belaid's assassination, the country witnessed a state of chaos, disobedience, protests, disruption of lessons, and disruption of air traffic due to strikes.

On August 27, 2023, Al-Arrayed announced - in a press conference - the designation of the so-called “Ansar al-Sharia” as a terrorist organization, and accused it of involvement in the political assassinations that targeted both leftist leaders Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi.

Tunisia was then able to emerge from the crisis that struck it after the assassination of Belaid and the representative of the People’s Movement, Mohamed Brahmi, on July 25, 2013, following the success of the national dialogue led by 4 national organizations after agreeing to write the 2014 constitution, appoint an independent government, and hold elections.

On the other hand, the Secretary-General of the People's Movement, Zuhair Al-Maghzawi, told Al-Jazeera Net that the issuance of rulings in the Shukri Belaid case relates only to a small group that carried out the assassination, stressing that the judiciary is expected to continue revealing the truth to find out the parties that planned, financed, and benefited from the assassination.

He stresses that issuing these rulings is an important step in the search for the truth and dismantling the political and terrorist crimes that occurred in Tunisia under the rule of the Ennahda movement, noting that his party holds it politically responsible for the assassination of Belaid and Brahmi, given that it was leading the Troika government.

Just start

Al-Maghzawi added that Ennahdha's responsibility for the assassination of Brahmi "rises to the criminal level due to his failure to notify him of the existence of a plan to assassinate him by Interior Minister Lotfi Ben Jeddou in the government headed by the movement, despite the receipt of a warning to the Ministry of Interior from a foreign security agency," according to his statement.

He explained that his party does not seek to level arbitrary accusations against the Ennahda movement, but rather to reveal the truth in the cases of political assassinations, which he said “sowed doubt and division in Tunisian society,” considering that the judiciary is the one who will decide these cases by deciding on the accusations against all parties based on the evidence. .

The defense team for Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi accuses the leaders of Ennahda, especially its leader Rached Ghannouchi, who has been in prison for about a year after being accused by the current authority of conspiring against state security, of giving orders to assassinate Belaid.

The Commission's lawyers assert that the rulings issued by the Court of First Instance are merely the beginning of the path to uncovering the truth and dismantling the case and all terrorist crimes. They accuse the Ennahda Movement of involvement in assassinations by using a secret device to infiltrate state agencies, but the movement strongly denies all of these accusations.

For his part, Abdelmadjid Belaid, Chokri Belaid's brother, told a private radio station that these rulings were the first stage in the beginning of the trial process for those who planned that political crime, accusing Ghannouchi of giving the order to carry out the assassination.

Two years ago, Tunisian President Kais Saied received Saleh Belaid, Chokri Belaid's father, and his brother, Abdelmadjid, at the Carthage Palace, stressing the need to expedite the accountability of those involved in his assassination.

Saeed has often made "veiled accusations against the parties that ruled during the past decade, especially the Ennahda movement, of involvement in corruption and terrorism cases." After taking exceptional measures on July 25, 2021, the security services launched an arrest campaign that included an important number of the movement’s leaders, including Rashid Ghannouchi.

Source: Al Jazeera