Tunis/Tunisia — Former President Abderrazak Kilani has been released from prison, his lawyer Mohamed Hedfi announced on Monday. In a statement to TAP, Hedfi added that the investigating judge at the military court closed the investigation in this case and decided to release the former president.
For his part, Hosni Beji, a member of the Kilani defense lawyers group, confirmed his client’s release and stressed that the prosecutor at the military court did not appeal the decision.
Earlier this month, the investigating judge at the military court of first instance in Tunis issued a warrant of committal against Abderrazek Kilani following a verbal exchange he had with security agents outside the prison. Habib Bougatfa hospital in Bizerte where his client, Noureddine Bhiri, a member of the Ennahdha movement, had been admitted.
Kilani was prosecuted for belonging to a group likely to “disturb public order” and whose purpose is “to commit an offense or to oppose the execution of a law, insulting a public official by words and threats in the exercise of his functions, attempt to provoke, by disturbances and fraudulent maneuvers, an individual or collective stoppage of work and the incitement of the security forces to rebellion.
For the defense lawyers of the former president, the arrest of their client is illegal and seems to be in preparation since the press conference of the Minister of the Interior held in January.
“The latter did not content himself with bringing charges against him, but deliberately adapted the facts and instructed the anti-terrorist brigade to entrust the case to the public prosecutor at the military court”, they lamented.
