After several months of preventive detention which dragged on the party of Qalb Tounès, called Thursday to release its boss, Nabil Karoui, key figure of the Tunisian media scene and who had campaigned for the presidential election in prison.
Qalb Tounès, a member of the government coalition in Tunisia and which holds 28 seats out of 217 against and 54 for the majority party Ennahdha, of Islamic inspiration, called on Thursday the end of the preventive detention against his boss.
Nabil Karoui, 57, known to be the boss of the television channel Nessma TV, is being prosecuted on charges of money laundering. He was a finalist in the 2019 presidential election which pitted him against Kais Saied, the current president.
The charges against Nabil Karoui had fallen at the same time of the presidential election and while he was given the favorite, his popularity suffered a blow when the justice decided to imprison him. Yet the case had pursued him since 2017.
For Qalb Tounès this arrest and this affair is nothing other than a “political machination” and recalled that his pre-trial detention had exceeded the legal deadlines. He was released and then arrested again and has been in detention since last December.
“We call for the immediate release of Nabil Karoui, and for an end to political harassment and forced detention,” party deputy Oussama Khlifi said Thursday at a press conference in Parliament.
The liberal party, which forms an alliance with the Islamists of Ennahda, argued that his pre-trial detention had exceeded the legal maximum by 23 days, when the law fixed its maximum duration at 6 months.
“We are in a political battle, the victim of which is Nabil Karoui, who is (…) taken hostage”, added Mr. Khlifi, while President Kais Saied accuses these parties of corruption and finds himself undermined. government because his relations with Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi are abysmal.
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