Arrest warrant issued in Tunisia for former Prime Minister Ali Larayed

The decision comes in the framework of a case for the alleged sending of jihadists to Syria

Dec. 20 (EUROPA PRESS) –

A Tunisian judge has issued an arrest warrant for former Prime Minister Ali Larayed, a senior member of the Islamist Ennahda party, in a case for allegedly sending jihadists to Syria.

The decision was taken after Larayed, who was Interior Minister between December 2011 and March 2013, appeared before an investigating judge handling the case, according to the Tunisian news portal Kapitalis.

Larayed, who was prime minister between March 2013 and January 2014, already appeared in several hearings in September, when he was arrested in the case. The politician, Vice President of Ennahda, rejects the accusations against him.

Larayed himself branded the judicial process opened against him “purely political” after his release and denounced a “harassment policy” against the formation. In the framework of the investigations, the president of the dissolved Parliament and leader of the Islamist party, Rachid Ghanuchi, has also been questioned.

Thus, he maintained that between 2012 and 2014 “the peak of the ‘Arab Spring’ revolutions was experienced and added that” taking advantage of this chaos, young Tunisians traveled to unknown destinations for multiple reasons, including studies, tourism and job search “.

In this sense, he pointed to the existence at that time of “an unprecedented drift at the level of security”, although he denied that the Tunisian authorities had documents at the time to prove that these people were traveling to conflict zones, including Syria.

Ennahda, the dominant force in Parliament suspended in July 2021 by the president, Kais Saied, has been very critical of the president for the exceptional measures announced since that date, when he arrogated all powers by also dissolving the Government.

The country held a legislature on Saturday marked by a turnout at historic lows -below nine percent- after the opposition boycott, which also called for non-participation in the constitutional referendum in July, which gives more powers to the Presidency and seizes influence from Parliament.