Tunisia puts off the case against leader of the opposition

• The main opposition leader Rached Ghannouchi’s terrorism trial was put off until November.
• Police thought he had helped Tunisians go to Syria to do jihad during the Islamic State crisis.
• The 81-year-old leader of the Islamist Ennahda party has denied all the charges.

The main opposition leader Rached Ghannouchi’s terrorism trial was put off until November by a Tunisian judge on Wednesday, his lawyer said. The judge also said that Rached Ghannouchi would not be held in jail before his trial.

Overnight, police questioned Ghannouchi for more than 12 hours because they thought he had helped Tunisians go to Syria to do jihad during the Islamic State crisis a decade ago.

The 81-year-old leader of the Islamist Ennahda party, who was also the speaker of the now-defunct parliament, has denied all the charges and said they are all politically motivated.

Former Prime Minister Ali Laareyedh, who is also a top member of Ennahda, will go to court later on Wednesday to answer to the same charges, which he also denies.

Ghannouchi was asked to meet with the terrorism police on Tuesday. His lawyer, Samir Dilou, said that he was questioned from 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. on Wednesday. He was also called on Monday, and after waiting for 12 hours, he was told to go home.

Ennahda says that police are using the investigation to scare them because the party is against President Kais Saied taking over a lot of power and shutting down the elected parliament in July 2021.

“They weren’t able to vote freely and face off against a major political opponent. So they tried to say that Ennahda was a terrorist group “Ghannouchi said as he waved to supporters from the sunroof of a car as he left the court.

No one from the police or other government agencies has talked about the case in public.

Earlier this summer, Ghannouchi was also looked into because he was accused of laundering money, which he denied.

Critics of President Saied say that he staged a coup when he took over most of the government’s powers last year and moved toward one-man rule. They also say that he is destroying the democracy that was won in the 2011 revolution that started the Arab Spring.

Saied says that what he did was legal and needed to be done to stop years of political paralysis in Tunisia. In July, he held a vote to approve a new constitution that gave him more power.

Last week, he signed a law that says people who spread what he calls “false information” online will go to prison for five years. Rights groups and the main journalists’ union say this will hurt free speech.

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