Four defendants in the trial for the assassination of Tunisian left-wing opponent Chokri Belaïd in 2013 were sentenced to death, in the very first verdict handed down in this case which shocked the country, a magistrate announced on national television on Wednesday. of the anti-terrorism judicial center.
In total, 23 people were indicted for the assassination in his car and in front of his home on February 6, 2013 of this 48-year-old lawyer, a virulent critic of the Islamo-conservative Ennahdha party, at the time in power in Tunisia.
After 15 hours of deliberation and 11 years of investigations and legal proceedings, the Tunis court of first instance also sentenced two defendants to life in prison, Aymen Chtiba, deputy prosecutor general of the anti-terrorism judicial center, announced live.
Jihadists joining ISIS
Sentences of 2 to 120 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 capital punishment sentences, particularly in terrorism cases, a de facto moratorium has been applied since 1991. Jihadists allied with the Islamic State (IS) group claimed responsibility for the assassination of Chokri Belaïd as well as than that, six months later, of the deputy Mohamed Brahmi, 58 years old, another figure of the left opposition.
Read alsoTunisia judges the murderers of anti-Islamist Chokri Belaïd
The Tunisian authorities announced in February 2014 the death of Kamel Gadhgadhi, considered the main author of the assassination of Chokri Belaïd, during an anti-terrorist operation.
Chokri Belaïd and Mohamed Brahmi opposed the policies of Ennahdha, a movement which dominated Parliament and the government for ten years after the Tunisian revolution in 2011, until a coup by the current president Kais Saïed on the 25 July 2021 by which he granted himself full powers.
These two assassinations shocked Tunisia and constituted a turning point for this country, cradle of the Arab Spring, then in the midst of a democratic transition, by causing a deep political crisis, at the end of which Ennahdha had to cede power to a government of technocrats in 2014 .