The public prosecutor at the Tunis court of the first instance said he was surprised by the statements given on Monday by the Minister of the Interior who had pointed out the slowness of the procedures concerning the obtaining, illicitly, by a Syrian couple, of Tunisian identity documents while Noureddine Bhiri was at the head of the Ministry of Justice.
The communication service at the Tunis Court of First Instance affirms, in a press release, a copy of which reached TAP on Tuesday, that the prosecution is following this file with all due seriousness, in accordance with the legal procedures decided in the case in question and refers to the opening of an investigation within a period which does not have 4 days from the date of receipt of a complimentary report issued by the Directorate of Research in Terrorist Crimes, Organized Crimes and Crimes Affecting national territory security.
He quotes article 16 of the code of penal procedures which stipulates that “the judicial police officers are always relieved (of the case) as soon as the public prosecutor, his deputy or the examining magistrate seizes the case. case. They must immediately hand over the accused as well as the minutes and exhibits”.
In this press release, the communications office provides a chronology of the actions taken by the prosecution, since the receipt, on October 7, 2021, of a request to open an investigation issued by the president of the Directorate of Crime Research. terrorists on the delivery, by the General Directorate of Judicial Services within the supervisory ministry, of a certificate of Tunisian nationality to a Syrian couple holding a Tunisian passport (delivered in 1982 and 1984 by the Tunisian embassy in Vienna).
The public prosecutor, says the same source, then opened a judicial investigation (7/10/2021) and entrusted the case to the aforementioned management.
On December 9, the prosecution received a report from the president of the Research Department containing the results of the first investigations which were limited to correspondence between the administrative parties involved.
On the 20th of the same month, the public prosecutor received a complimentary report, from the same structure, containing new information concerning suspicions of falsification of the two nationality certificates issued to the Syrian couple when Noureddine Bhiri was still at the head of the Ministry of Justice.
Regarding passports and residence cards, the same source specifies that they were issued after the intervention of a security “named” Fethi Beldi. Ali Larayadh was then Minister of the Interior. And on December 22, 2021, the public prosecutor decides to entrust the case to the judicial pole of the fight against terrorism which will open, two days later, an investigation on the people who have benefited from forged documents and all the parties involved in this trafficking.
On Monday, the Minister of the Interior Taoufik Charfeddine made a point of clarifying during a press conference that the house arrest targeting the former Minister of Justice Noureddine Bhiri as well as the adviser to the former Minister of the Interior Ali Larayadh, comply with the law and relate to an ongoing investigation into illegally issued identity documents. The minister, in the process, criticized the unjustified slowness of legal proceedings relating to the case. ?? At the start of the press conference, the Minister of the Interior warned against any attempt to involve the security institution in political tensions, “promising zero tolerance on this subject.” The Ennahdha movement was announced, on December 31.
