Tunisia-Judicial investigation into suspected falsification of official documents ongoing for years (MFA)

An investigation on the Tunisian mission in Damascus was initiated in February 2019, involving the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Special Investigation Unit on Terrorist Crimes and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it said in a statement.

“The case is monitored at the highest level and no one is above the law,” the ministry further stressed.

The Court of First Instance in Tunis, Tuesday, announced that the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Judicial counter-terrorism division has ordered to place in custody a former Tunisian consul in Syria, a former head of the consular office, an official at the civil status office in Tunis and the head of the section of civil status under the diplomatic mission in Syria, saying that the research is still ongoing.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Judicial Pole of counter-terrorism had charged the special unit of investigation in terrorist crimes to investigate officials in Tunisia and abroad, suspected of falsifying birth certificates, national identity cards and Tunisian passports for citizens of different countries between 2015 and 2019.

The investigation also covers four Interior Ministry officials, he added.

A member of parliament Last March sent an oral question to the Minister of Foreign Affairs on “breaches and failures that would have been committed by officials of Tunisian embassies abroad” who would have “provided Syrians with Tunisian passports in Lebanon between 2016 and 2017.”

(TAP)