Tunisian court hands prison sentences in mass trial of regime opponents

sentences of up to 66 years

A Tunisian court on Sunday, April 20, 2025, handed down prison sentences of 13 to 66 years to politicians, businessmen and lawyers.

According to The Guardian, this was in a mass trial that opponents say is fabricated

They also claim it is a symbol of President Kais Saied’s authoritarian rule.

Businessman Kamel Ltaif, received the longest sentence of 66 years on Saturday.

Also, opposition politician Khayam Turki, was given a 48-year jail term, according to a lawyer lawyer for the defendants.

The court also sentenced prominent opposition figures, including Ghazi Chaouachi, Issam Chebbi, Jawahar Ben Mbarek and Ridha Belhaj, to 18 years in prison.

They have been in custody since 2023.

Egyptians celebrate the fall of Hosni Mubarak in Tahrir Square in February 2011.

Forty people were being prosecuted in the trial that started in March.

More than 20 have fled abroad since being charged.

Saied secured a second five-year term in 2024 with 90.7% of the vote after coming to power in 2019.

Rights groups say he has had full control over the judiciary since he dissolved parliament in 2021 and began ruling by decree.

He dissolved the independent supreme judicial council and sacked dozens of judges in 2022.

“We are not surprised by these unjust and vengeful verdicts that seek to silence the voices of these opposition figures,” Chaouachi’s son Youssef said

“I have never witnessed a trial like this.

Defence lawyer Ahmed Souab on Friday said, before the ruling was handed down:

“It’s a farce, the rulings are ready, and what is happening is scandalous and shameful.”

Authorities say the defendants tried to destabilise the country and overthrow Saied.

According to them, the defendants include former officials and the former head of intelligence Kamel Guizani.

“The authorities want to criminalise the opposition,” said the leader of the main National Salvation Front opposition coalition, Nejib Chebbi, on Friday.

Chebbi was also among the defendants.

Saied said in 2023 the politicians were “traitors and terrorists” and that judges who would acquit them were their accomplices.

The opposition leaders involved in the case accuse Saied of staging a coup in 2021 and say the case is fabricated to stifle the opposition and establish a one-man, repressive rule.

They say they were preparing an initiative aimed at uniting the fragmented opposition to face the democratic setback in the cradle of the Arab spring uprisings.

Most of the leaders of political parties in Tunisia are in prison, including two of Saied’s most prominent opponents:

Abir Moussi, the leader of the Free Constitutional party, and Rached Ghannouchi, the head of Ennahda.

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