Tunisian judge releases former Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali pending trial

A Tunisian court ordered the release of former Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali on Monday, four days after his arrest, one of his lawyers said.

Lawyer Samir Dilou said a judge ordered Jebali’s release and kept him under investigation on suspicion of money laundering.

On July 20th, Jebali is scheduled to appear before an investigative judge at the anti-terrorism judicial office in Tunis, Dilou said.

The former Tunisian prime minister went on hunger strike after being arrested before being taken to hospital on Saturday, his lawyer said.

Jebali was arrested on Thursday in Sousse, 150km south of Tunis, on suspicion of being involved in a money laundering case involving transfers from abroad to a charity, the interior ministry said.

Prior to his arrest, the former secretary-general of Ennahdha, from whom he resigned in 2014, had been under investigation for nearly a month over the activities of a factory owned by his wife in Sousse that police had raided in May and announced they had seized a dangerous goods list item.

Jebali is considered the Ennahdha Movement, the largest parliamentary bloc in the dissolved Assembly of the Representatives of the People, and headed the government between December 2011 and February 2013.