The Spoiled Son of Rached Ghannouchi… Who is the Tunisian Brotherhood member Seifeddine Makhlouf ?
Seifeddine Makhlouf was born in Tunisia and has been a lawyer since 2009, registered with the Court of Appeal since 2011, and holds a master’s degree in Criminal Sciences from the Faculty of Law and Political Science in Tunis.
In addition to obtaining a certificate in International Commercial Arbitration, Makhlouf participated in monitoring the 2011 and 2014 elections as part of the Electoral Observation Observatory of the National Bar Association of Tunisia.
He is a deputy in the dissolved Tunisian Parliament, sentenced to prison and banned from practicing law for (5) years in the case known in the media as the “Airport Incident,” when he attempted to pass terrorism through the airport. He also faces a charge of “insulting the army” after a confrontation with a military court official in Tunis court premises and was sentenced to (8) months in prison.
Seifeddine first appeared on the political scene during the events of 2011, becoming one of the prominent new Islamist faces at the time, and in the 2019 legislative elections, Makhlouf used the image of the current president, Kais Saied, without his consent in the election campaign, and was subsequently elected deputy for the Tunis I district. On November 6, 2019, the Tunisian General Labour Union filed a complaint against Makhlouf for defamation, accusing him of corruption.
On December 13, the Sixth Reform Chamber of the Tunis Court of First Instance sentenced Makhlouf to twenty months in prison for contempt of court and threats made against him after the closure of the Quranic school in Rqqab.
Despite closure decisions, the school defied everyone and continued to operate in blatant violation of the law. Following the broadcast of the investigation, the public prosecutor of Sidi Bouzid ordered the evacuation of children from the space where they resided.
Authorities decided to place the school owner in pretrial detention for human trafficking through economic exploitation and violence, as well as on suspicion of belonging to a terrorist organization. Later, the family judge of the Tunis Court of First Instance issued an order for the children of the Rqqab school to be returned to their families starting from February 12, 2019.
At the time, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb issued a statement, at the beginning of the Rqqab school crisis, entitled “The War on Islam in Tunisia and Algeria… How Long Will the Silence Last?”, criticizing the government’s handling of this issue and calling for it to be targeted.
He also faces a charge of “insulting the army” after a confrontation with a military court official in Tunis court premises.
The Al-Karama movement is described by observers as the thuggish arm of the Islamist movement, which has sought to portray itself as an open-minded current to others, tasked with the dirty missions it cannot openly accomplish.
