Tunisian court sentences 4 to death in opposition leader assassination case
A verdict has been announced in the assassination case of Chokri Belaid, a leader of the leftist opposition in Tunisia. The court sentenced 4 individuals to death.
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The trial regarding the assassination of Chokri Belaid, one of the opposition leaders killed in Tunisia in 2013, has concluded. The court sentenced 4 people involved in the assassination to death.
Aymen Chtiba, Deputy Public Prosecutor at the Counter-Terrorism Court, provided information regarding the Belaid case in a statement to state television.
Chtiba stated that out of the 23 individuals tried as part of the investigation launched after the leftist opposition politician and Secretary-General of the Democratic Patriots' Movement, Belaid, lost his life in an armed attack in front of his home in the capital, Tunis, on February 6, 2013, 4 were sentenced to death. He added that 2 of the defendants were sentenced to life imprisonment, while others received prison sentences ranging from 2 to 120 years.
Chtiba said that following these sentences handed down to those who planned and carried out the Belaid assassination, the legal process regarding those who financed the assassination and provided protection to the assassins would continue.
WHAT HAD HAPPENED?
In the long-running Belaid assassination case, the Ennahda Movement had been accused, but the movement had repeatedly stated that they had no connection to this assassination.
Following the killing of Tunisian politician Belaid in February 2013 and opposition leader Mohamed Brahmi in July 2013, the coalition government led by the Ennahda Movement resigned to prevent protests and political chaos, handing over its duties to a technocratic government.
The lack of significant progress in the investigation into the assassinations over the past years had drawn intense criticism from the opposition.