On Friday, a Tunisian high court sentenced former President Moncef Marzouki to eight years in prison in absentia, citing charges of attacking state security and inciting the masses.
According to Mohamed Zaitouneh, the official spokesman for the Court of First Instance, the decision was based on Marzouki’s social media statements, prompting an investigative case on allegations of planning attacks to change the state’s structure, inciting violence among residents, and advocating for murder and robbery.
Marzouki, who served as Tunisia’s president from 2011 to 2014, has not responded to the ruling.
Previously, on December 22, 2021, a local court issued a preliminary four-year jail sentence against him in absentia for “attacking state security,” a charge he denied, calling it the result of a “miserable judge” acting on the orders of an “illegitimate president,” referring to President Kais Saied.
In response to an international arrest warrant issued a month earlier, Marzouki expressed his intent to thwart a Francophone summit in the country.
In 2023, several political figures faced arrests, accused of “plotting against state security,” leading to opposition criticism of these arrests as “groundless.”
