Tunisia Muslim Brotherhood leaders flee to Libya to escape prosecution

15th November 2021

3 minutes read

Well-informed Libyan sources have revealed that a number of leaders of the Renaissance Brotherhood movement have recently infiltrated Libya from Tunisia, in order to escape the judicial proceedings.

Sources said that five Brotherhood families left Tunisia for Libya with the help of Ennahdha leaders through the Ras Jedir border crossing.

The sources said that the Brotherhood families are currently residing in the city of Zaouia in northwestern Libya, under the direct patronage of the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood leader, Khaled Al-Michri, President of the Libyan High Council of State.

“Areas of Libya’s interior close to the border with Tunisia remain under Brotherhood control, namely the Salah al-Din Brigade in the corner controlled by al-Michri“.

Tunisian political analyst Nizar Jlidi said that Muslim Brotherhood families fled to Libya after Tunisian President Kais Saied’s extraordinary measures were announced on July 25th, pledging to open corruption cases and prosecute corrupt individuals.

“Those who fled Tunisia are influential leaders within the Brotherhood, who control the financing and investment processes, and are not known in the political or media circles, including the family of Ahmed al-Marri, a Brotherhood leader involved in the events of March 7th in Ben Guerdane“, Jlidi said.

“Ennahdha’s invisible man Abdallah al-Triki represents the movement’s economic wing and lives in the city of Jerish on the border with Libya,” he said.

In the same context, the sources said that the border witnessed several attempts by Tunisian Brotherhood elements involved in corruption cases with their families to flee the country, as well as the infiltration of some elements belonging to ISIS and armed Brotherhood militias into Tunisia, which prompted the Tunisian army to reinforce its presence in these areas to thwart these operations and secure the borders.

Tunisian media reported that the authorities decided to prevent the entry of a number of Libyan Brotherhood leaders to Tunisia.

Tunisian newspapers quoted security sources as saying that al-Michri, who they described as “Turkey’s man in Libya“, is at the top of the list of “those banned from entering Tunisia“, pointing out that “all Tunisian border crossings, land, sea and air, have been generalized for two days“.

According to the sources, the list also included the Mufti of the Brotherhood in Libya, Sadeq al-Gheryani, in addition to other Libyan leaders affiliated with the Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood’s leadership in Libya attacked the Tunisian president’s recent decisions, describing them as a “coup” and threatening to intervene to save Ennahdha, as he described it. Al-Gheryani also called for forcible resistance to the decisions.

“The Tunisian forces are fully prepared in terms of security and intelligence to confront these attempts that aim to undermine the security and stability of the country”, al-Jlidi said. “This is in response to the strict corrective decisions announced by Saeed on July 25th to freeze the work of the parliament and lift the immunity of its members, as well as the exemption of the prime minister and a number of ministers and officials from their positions within the state, and the subsequent opening of corruption files and foreign funding that were condemned by a group of politicians“.

Tunisian forces are deploying heavily near the Libyan border, he said, noting the movement of ISIS fighters in the Libyan town of Janzour.

“Ennahdha gave the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood a green light to intervene in Tunisian affairs, which is evident in the statements made by the Libyan leaders of the organization, who described what happened in Tunisia as a coup and publicly threatened to intervene to remedy the situation“, he said.