Tunisian Officials under House Arrest over Corruption Suspicions

Crowds gather on the street after Tunisia’s president suspended parliament, in La Marsa, near Tunis, Tunisia July 26, 2021, in this still image obtained from a social media video. (Reuters)
Crowds gather on the street after Tunisia’s president suspended parliament, in La Marsa, near Tunis, Tunisia July 26, 2021, in this still image obtained from a social media video. (Reuters)
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Tunisian Officials under House Arrest over Corruption Suspicions

Crowds gather on the street after Tunisia’s president suspended parliament, in La Marsa, near Tunis, Tunisia July 26, 2021, in this still image obtained from a social media video. (Reuters)
Crowds gather on the street after Tunisia’s president suspended parliament, in La Marsa, near Tunis, Tunisia July 26, 2021, in this still image obtained from a social media video. (Reuters)

Tunisian official judicial and security sources confirmed that the new Minister of Interior, Khaled Al Yahyaoui, recently issued decisions that placed former ministers, judges and public figures under house arrest for their suspected involvement in corruption and abuse of power.

Among them are two senior judicial officials, Taieb Rached and Bechir Akremi, who have served in the judiciary for nearly 20 years. Others included former Minister of Transport and Communication Technology and prominent Ennahda member Anouar Maarouf, and former Minister of Environment and Local Governments before the 2019 elections, Riadh Mouakher.

Head of parliament’s anti-corruption committee and leading member of the People’s Movement, Badreddine Gammoudi, who is close to the Carthage Palace, stated that a number of “very well-known” personalities were placed under house arrest or were prevented from traveling, including some senior figures who served during the tenure of former Prime Minister Youssef Chahed.

Some lawyers expected that the investigation with the senior officials would open files of corruption and “large-scale” financial and administrative misconduct pertaining to state real estate and other deals that include some “big smugglers”, ministers, politicians and administrators in the pre- and post-revolution 2011 eras.

The cases will also lead to the reopening of files concerning businessmen and politicians, whose properties and financial assets were confiscated by the authorities during the last three years of the rule of late President Beji Caid Essebsi and his prime minister, Chahed.

Judicial, human rights and union organizations and personalities have called on the authorities to respect law and human rights and to expedite the formation of the “new economic government”, in order to put an end to the “political and administrative vacuum” that most state institutions have been experiencing since the president sacked Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi and the government and suspended parliament.

Observers noted that over the past two weeks, President Kais Saied has not met publicly with any of the leaders of the parliamentary and opposition political parties. Rather, he only received representatives of unions and civil society for brief meetings.



Fears for Gaza Hospitals as Fuel and Aid Run Low

The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said Friday that hospitals have only two days' fuel left before they must restrict services, after the UN warned aid delivery to the war-devastated territory is being crippled. - AFP
The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said Friday that hospitals have only two days' fuel left before they must restrict services, after the UN warned aid delivery to the war-devastated territory is being crippled. - AFP
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Fears for Gaza Hospitals as Fuel and Aid Run Low

The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said Friday that hospitals have only two days' fuel left before they must restrict services, after the UN warned aid delivery to the war-devastated territory is being crippled. - AFP
The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said Friday that hospitals have only two days' fuel left before they must restrict services, after the UN warned aid delivery to the war-devastated territory is being crippled. - AFP

The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said Friday that hospitals have only two days' fuel left before they must restrict services, after the UN warned aid delivery to the war-devastated territory is being crippled.

The warning came a day after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant more than a year into the Gaza war.

The United Nations and others have repeatedly decried humanitarian conditions, particularly in northern Gaza, where Israel said Friday it had killed two commanders involved in Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack that triggered the war.

Gaza medics said an overnight Israeli raid on the cities of Beit Lahia and nearby Jabalia resulted in dozens killed or missing.

Marwan al-Hams, director of Gaza's field hospitals, told reporters all hospitals in the Palestinian territory "will stop working or reduce their services within 48 hours due to the occupation's (Israel's) obstruction of fuel entry".

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was "deeply concerned about the safety and well-being of 80 patients, including 8 in the intensive care unit" at Kamal Adwan hospital, one of just two partly operating in northern Gaza.

Kamal Adwan director Hossam Abu Safia told AFP it was "deliberately hit by Israeli shelling for the second day" Friday and that "one doctor and some patients were injured".

Late Thursday, the UN's humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, Muhannad Hadi, said: "The delivery of critical aid across Gaza, including food, water, fuel and medical supplies, is grinding to a halt."

He said that for more than six weeks, Israeli authorities "have been banning commercial imports" while "a surge in armed looting" has hit aid convoys.

Issuing the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, the Hague-based ICC said there were "reasonable grounds" to believe they bore "criminal responsibility" for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare, and crimes against humanity including over "the lack of food, water, electricity and fuel, and specific medical supplies".

At least 44,056 people have been killed in Gaza during more than 13 months of war, most of them civilians, according to figures from Gaza's health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.