Tunisia court postpones appeal into case alleging involvement in sending jihadists abroad

Tunisia’s Court of Appeal yesterday postponed the hearing into the appeal submitted by the Public Prosecutor against a judge’s decision to release 39 defendants who are under investigation for helping to send jihadists to Syria.

Defence lawyer, Samir Dilou, said the appeal will now be heard on 13 October.

“The Indictment Division of the Court of Appeal in Tunis decided to postpone the consideration of the appeal submitted by the Public Prosecution, due to the refusal of the investigating judge to respond to its request to issue a detention order against 39 defendants in the case known as the ‘dispatch case’, until the session scheduled on October 13, 2022,” Dilou wrote on his Facebook page.

Yesterday, the official spokesman of the Court of Appeal in the capital, Habib Tarkhani, said 820 people including politicians have been charged in the case of sending jihadists to Syria, adding that the number is likely to increase.

The president of the Ennahda Movement, Rached Ghannouchi, his deputy and former Tunisian Prime Minister Ali Laarayedh, and other MPs from Ennahda have been investigated in the case. They have all since been released pending the completion of further investigations.

READ: Ghannouchi advisor: We are innocent of ‘dispatch’ case; Tunisia on the brink of social explosion