Fifteen-Year Prison Sentence: New Ruling Against Tunisia’s Muslim Brotherhood Judge
A Tunisian court has sentenced Bechir Akremi, widely referred to as the “Muslim Brotherhood judge” and the former prosecutor responsible for the political assassination case, to 15 years in prison on forgery charges.
The ruling was issued late on Tuesday night into Wednesday morning by the Fourth Criminal Chamber of the Tunis Court of First Instance.
Akremi, the former public prosecutor at the Tunis Court of First Instance, received a 15-year prison sentence over charges related to “forgery.”
He has already been sentenced to more than 20 years in prison in other terrorism-related cases.
Last March, the Tunisian judiciary sentenced Akremi to 23 years in prison in a case concerning the concealment of suspects implicated in the assassination of left-wing politician Chokri Belaid, the former secretary-general of the Unified Democratic Patriots Movement.
In July 2023, the Tunisian judiciary issued a detention order against Akremi following allegations made by the legal defense committee representing the cases of assassinated politicians Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi.
The committee accused him of offenses including treason, espionage and contributing to the suspension and obstruction of surveillance operations that, it alleged, would have revealed his suspected involvement in the political assassinations and the falsification of evidence.
At the time, the defense committee also disclosed the existence of a case before the Economic and Financial Judicial Counter concerning Akremi’s alleged relationship with what it described as the clandestine financial apparatus of Rached Ghannouchi, leader of the Ennahda Movement, which the article associates with the Muslim Brotherhood.
The committee alleged that “Akremi placed himself at the disposal of foreign states, secretly collaborated with them and received money.”
Akremi has been widely described as “Ennahda’s man and its instrument for bending the judicial system to serve the movement’s interests.”
In 2013, Akremi served as the investigating judge responsible for the case involving the assassinations of opposition politicians Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi.
Beginning in 2016, he served as public prosecutor at the Tunis Court of First Instance.
