Judge orders Tunisian Islamist leader to stay in custody

FILE - Leader of the Ennahdha party, Rached Ghannouchi, speaks to the media after he was freed by the Tunisia's anti-terrorism unit in Tunis, Tunisia, Tuesday, July 19, 2022. Influential Tunisian Islamist leader Rachid Ghannouchi was detained Monday after a police search, according to his lawyer. (AP Photo/Hassene Dridi, File) (Hassene Dridi, Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

TUNIS โ€“ A Tunisian investigative judge has ordered that influential Islamist leader Rached Ghannouchi remain in custody, his party said Thursday on its official social media.

The Ennahdha party denounced in a statement on Facebook the โ€œunjust imprisonmentโ€ of its leader, after Ghannouchi was arrested by police Monday. On its English-language Twitter account, the party said Ghannouchi has been charged with conspiracy against state security and ordered to be imprisoned pending trial.

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Ghannouchiโ€™s lawyer Mokhtar Jemai confirmed his client was being detained Thursday.

Ennahdha said it was a โ€œpolitical measureโ€ that aims to โ€œcover the bitter failure of the power to improve the economic and social situation and the daily lives of the people.โ€

The National Salvation Front, the main opposition coalition that includes Ennahdha, said in a statement that Ghannouchiโ€™s detention shows โ€œthe deterioration of freedoms in Tunisia.โ€

Ghannouchi, 81, is the most prominent critic of President Kais Saied. He served as speaker of Tunisiaโ€™s parliament until Saied dissolved the body last July and seized most executive powers in the North African country โ€” a move that Ghannouchi and other opponents call a coup.

He has been detained for questioning a number of times in the past, but the circumstances of his latest detention suggested that this time was more serious.

Tunisiaโ€™s official TAP news agency reported earlier this week that he was detained on a warrant by counterterrorism prosecutors as part of an investigation into recent โ€œprovocativeโ€ comments. It did not elaborate.

Other Tunisian media reported that Ghannouchi was to be questioned over a video circulating online in which he purportedly says that the presidentโ€™s perceived efforts to โ€œeradicate" Islamist opposition threaten to unleash civil war.

The move comes amid growing social tensions and deepening economic troubles in Tunisia, the birthplace of the Arab Spring pro-democracy movement more than a decade ago.


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