Tunisia: Life imprisonment for Zine El Abidine Ben Ali

On Tuesday, the Tunisian judiciary sentenced in absentia the former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to life imprisonment on the charge of pre-mediated murder in cases related to the 2011 revolution.

This ruling, issued on Tuesday by the General Agency for the Administration of Military Justice, was reported by the official news agency. A statement said:

The Criminal Chamber of the Military Court of Appeal in Tunis rendered judgments with various degrees on the cases of the martyrs and the wounded of the revolution, on Tuesday, including a sentence that convicts Ben Ali for life imprisonment.

It went on:

The Court of Appeal filed an appeal in cassation of the initial verdicts on these cases, which included 40 accused, and convicted several of them for “first degree murder and complicity in murder.

The court also sentenced other defendants in these cases for periods ranging from two to eight years imprisonment though some other cases were dismissed.

Earlier, Tunisian courts sentenced in absentia Ben Ali, his wife Leila Trabelsi and several of his brothers-in-law to prison on corruption charges. He was also previously sentenced to life imprisonment for killing demonstrators during the 2011 revolution.

After the outbreak of the revolution, Ben Ali and his wife and two of their children fled on 14 January 2011 to Saudi Arabia. According to the report of the National Commission of Inquir, issued in 2012, 338 deaths and 2147 injuries during the Tunisian revolution were registered. The government has not yet issued an official list.

READ: Tunisia: Tourism income up 31% in 4 months