Arabic version: أعلى محكمة في تونس تؤيد أحكام سجن بحق معارضين

According to France 24, Tunisia’s Cassation Court on Thursday upheld prison sentences of up to 45 years for opposition leaders, lawyers and businessmen convicted in a major conspiracy case. Lawyers and relatives said the ruling concludes three years of legal proceedings and cannot be appealed.

Forty people were charged with conspiring to overthrow President Kais Saied in one of Tunisia’s largest recent political prosecutions. Twenty of the defendants fled abroad and were sentenced in absentia. The opposition said the final ruling further entrenches Saied’s authoritarian rule.

Prominent opposition figures Ghazi Chaouachi, Issam Chebbi, Jawhar Ben Mbarek and Ridha Belhaj received 20-year prison sentences. Politician Noureddine Bhiri was sentenced to 10 years. Nejib Chebbi, a leading figure in the National Salvation Front, received 12 years.

Haifa Chebbi, a lawyer and Nejib Chebbi’s daughter, said the decision showed that the judiciary was not independent. Saied has said the judiciary remains independent and that he would not become a dictator. In 2023, when most defendants were arrested, he called the politicians “traitors and terrorists” and said judges who acquitted them would be their accomplices. Tunisia’s justice minister has said the defendants sought to destabilise the country and overthrow Saied.

Rights groups say Saied has controlled the judiciary since he suspended parliament and assumed extraordinary powers in 2021. They cite his rule by decree, the dissolution of the independent Supreme Judicial Council and the dismissal of dozens of judges in 2022.