The verdict has been reached in the trial for the assassination of Chokri Belaïd.
Four defendants were sentenced to death this Wednesday for the murder of the Tunisian opponent in 2013. A case which shocked Tunisia and caused a serious political crisis in the country.
In total, 23 people were charged with the shooting 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 11 years of investigations and legal proceedings, and 15 hours of deliberation, the court of first instance of Tunis also sentenced two defendants to life imprisonment, announced live on national television Aymen Chtiba, deputy prosecutor general of the pole anti-terrorism judiciary.
The prosecutor was pleased that “justice had been done”, explaining the length of the deliberations, which lasted all night, by “the nature and volume” of the case.
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.
Revocation of dozens of magistrates
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.
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 after the Tunisian revolution in 2011, until a coup in 2021 by current President Kaïs Saïed (elected in 2019) 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 .
In February 2023, the Tunisian Ministry of Justice announced the establishment of a commission responsible for an “in-depth” study on the police and judicial investigations and prosecutions of these assassinations.
In June 2022, President Kais Saied, 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.
Ennahdha's response
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.
Those close to Chokri Belaïd pointed the finger at Ennahdha, accusing the movement of having at least been “lenient” towards the discourse of extremist Islamists which had developed at the time.
Ennahdha responded to these criticisms by saying it had classified the Salafist jihadist movement Ansar al-Sharia (tolerated after the fall of dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011) as a terrorist organization after the assassinations of two opponents.
This Wednesday morning, the movement promptly reacted to the first verdict, believing that the police and judicial investigations as well as the convictions handed down “prove the innocence” of Ennahdha.
The party denounced “a desire of certain ideological currents and political parties to wrongly accuse him” of these assassinations.
After the 2011 revolt which caused the fall of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia saw a rise in jihadist groups with thousands of Islamists leaving to fight in Syria, Iraq and Libya.
Attacks have also killed dozens of tourists (in Sousse and Tunis in 2015) and security forces in Tunisia.
The authorities claim to have made significant progress in the fight against jihadists in recent years.