According to Reuters, a Tunisian investigating magistrate sentenced Ennahda leader Rached Ghannouchi to prison on Thursday.
She stated that Ghannouchi was arrested on Monday for planning against internal state security after an eight-hour inquiry.
Several prominent politicians have been arrested this year for accusing Saied of a coup for closing parliament and ruling by decree before amending the constitution.
“It was a ready decision to imprison Ghannouchi only because of Ghannouchi’s expression of his opinion,” lawyer Monia Bouali told Reuters.
After the judge’s verdict, Ghannouchi’s official Facebook page posted: “I am optimistic about the future… Tunisia is free”.
Saied dissolved the elected parliament in 2021, and the 81-year-old was its speaker.
On Tuesday, Tunisian authorities banned Ennahda meetings and closed the Salvation Front headquarters.
The party stated Ennahda worries the measure will lead to its banning.
The U.S. called Ghannouchi’s arrest, Ennahda’s headquarters closure, and opposition group meetings banned a disturbing escalation.
“Inciting statements” got Ghannouchi arrested, an interior ministry spokesman said.
In an opposition conference last week, Ghannouchi declared, “Tunisia without Ennahda, without political Islam, without the left, or any other component, is a project for civil war.”
The powerful leader exiled in the 1990s and returned following Tunisia’s 2011 democratic revolution, claimed those who “celebrated the coup are extremists and terrorists.”
Over the past year, Ghannouchi has undergone repeated judicial interrogation on charges linked to Ennahda’s finances and allegations it assisted Islamists to fly to Syria for jihad, which he and the party deny.
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