2023-11-01 22:49:42
Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed spoke on Wednesday of complicity and an “operation planned for months” the day after the escape of five individuals, imprisoned in the prison supposed to be the best monitored in Tunisia for their involvement in attacks. “terrorists”.
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A run that does not go unnoticed. The Tunisian President, Kaïs Saïed, denounced, Wednesday 1is November, complicity and an “operation planned for months” after the escape, the day before, of five men involved in “terrorist” attacks from the largest prison in the country.
“Yesterday’s premeditated operation was not an escape. All the elements indicate that the operation had been planned for several months,” assured Kaïs Saïed in a video, during a meeting with his Minister of the Interior , Kamel Feki.
“What happened is not acceptable, it is a failure for the security forces and certain individuals and they must be prosecuted,” he added. According to him, there is a desire on the part of certain people, whom he did not identify, to “harm the State, by collaborating with Zionist movements and parts of the interior of the country”.
After this escape from Mornaguia prison, supposed to be the best monitored in Tunisia, two senior leaders of the Ministry of the Interior, including the director of general intelligence, and the director of the prison, attached to the Ministry of Justice, were dismissed.
Ahmed Melki is one of the fugitives
The five men, who escaped at dawn on Tuesday, are considered “dangerous” and most were affiliated with the jihadist organizations Ansar al-Sharia and Al-Qaeda. They are liable to “prison sentences linked to terrorist cases”, indicated the Ministry of the Interior.
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Among the fugitives is Ahmed Melki, 44, nicknamed “the Somali”, involved in assassinations of opposition politicians, claimed by Islamist extremists.
Arrested in 2014, he was the main accused for the murder, on July 25, 2013, of left-wing MP Mohamed Brahmi. He was also involved in the assassination, on February 6, 2013, in Tunis, of left-wing opponent Chokri Belaïd. The investigation into these two murders is still not completed.
These assassinations, which shocked Tunisian public opinion, triggered a serious political crisis which forced the Islamist-inspired Ennahda party to cede power, which it had held since the Democratic Revolution of 2011, to a government of technocrats.
After the popular revolt of 2011 which caused the fall of dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia saw a rise in jihadist groups. Attacks in Tunisia have left dozens of tourists dead (Sousse and Tunis in 2015) and security forces.
With AFP
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