Rached Ghannouchi and 33 Ennahdha leaders officially charged with terrorism – Details
Tunisia’s Muslim Brotherhood Ennahdha is facing its biggest wave of legal and popular crackdowns, revealing the flip side of the movement that has controlled the country’s executive powers for nearly ten years. The most recent decision by the Tunisian judiciary to formally charge 33 people, including the movement’s leader Rached Ghannouchi, with “belonging to a terrorist organization” in the assassination of prominent Tunisian dissidents.
Ghannouchi is a terrorist
Lawyer Iman Qazara, member of the defense committee in the case of the assassination of opponents Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi, announced that 33 people, including the head of the Ennahdha Movement, Rached Ghannouchi, have been charged with belonging to a terrorist organization, according to the official Tunisian News Agency.
The lawyer also revealed that the first investigating judge in the 23rd Judicial Bureau of the anti-terrorism judiciary, charged the 33 defendants with belonging to a terrorist organization, money laundering, and 17 other charges.
Ghannouchi’s son’s terrorism
This move against the terrorist movement and its leader, Rached Ghannouchi, comes a few days after the Tunisian Public Prosecutor’s Office decided to refer Rached Ghannouchi’s son to the investigation of charges related to the financing of terrorism, in which the results of the investigations conducted by the anti-terrorism unit in the Bouchoucha region were based on crimes related to money laundering and the suspected financing of persons or organizations linked to terrorism, whether inside or outside Tunisian territory.
Dr. Badra Gaaloul, director of the National Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Tunisia, says: After the court’s recent decision against Ghannouchi and a number of members of the terrorist Ennahdha, and before the decision of Ghannouchi’s son, all these matters and decisions put that terrorist movement on the legal table, and that it is time to declare that Muslim Brotherhood movement a terrorist entity, all of its activities must be banned.
The Director of the National Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Tunisia added that banning the terrorist group will put all those who join it under the law, pointing out that there must be a speedy trial against those involved in the suspicious acts of Ennahdha, such as corruption, murder, terrorism and spreading extremism, especially that the history of that movement is full of disasters and major terrorist acts in Tunisia. The investigative judge in the Court of First Instance in Ariana had issued a travel ban on Rached Ghannouchi, regarding the file of the secret organ of the party, following the case filed by the defense of the martyrs Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi. The defense of Belaid and Brahmi had confirmed years ago that they had provided sufficient evidence since February 2019, which proves the involvement in the political assassinations in Tunisia in 2013.
