Tunisia-Prosecution reacts to the Minister of the Interior

The Public Prosecutor’s Office handled the case with due seriousness in line with legal procedures and in compliance with a deadline not exceeding four days from the date of reception of a complementary report by the Unit for the Investigation of Terrorist Crimes, Organised Crime and National Security Crimes, said the Communications Office at the Tunis Court of First Instance.

Under article 16 of the Penal Procedures Code which stipulates that “a case is withdrawn from criminal investigation police officers as soon as the public prosecutor, the deputy prosecutor or the investigating judge take on the case. They must immediately hand over the accused as well as the minutes and evidence.”

The Communications Office provided a chronology of actions undertaken by the Public Prosecutir’s Office since the receipt on October 7, 2021, of a request to initiate an investigation by the Head of the Unit for the Investigation of Terrorist Crimes into the Directorate of Legal Services under the ministry granting a citizenship certificate to a Syrian couple holders of Tunisian passports (handed in 1982 and 1984) by Tunisia’s embassy in Vienna.

The Public Prosecutor, the same source, opened an investigation (7/10/2021) and entrusted the case to the aforementioned directorate.

On December 9, the Public Prosecutor’s Office received a report from the head of the direcorate for investigations which presents the results of preliminary investigations. limited to inter-administrative correspondence. .

The public prosecutor received a complimentary report from the same structure on December 20 which provides additional information according to which the allegedly forged. documents – two citizenship certificates- were given to the Syrian couple when Noureddine Bhiri was still at the head of the Justice Ministry.

Passports and residence permits, the same source said, were given after a police staff member called Fethi Beldi intervened. Ali Larayadh was then interior minister.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office transferred the case on December 22 to the Judicial Counter-Terrorism Division. The latter initiated two days later an investigation into the recipients of the forged documents and all those involved.

(TAP)