Awaiting a verdict — andjustice
FAMILIES OF THOSE KILLED IN TUNISIA’S REVOLUTION ARE CONVINCED THEYWILL NEVER KNOWTHE TRUTH ABOUT THE KILLINGS
Amilitary court is set to hand down a verdict for ousted strongman Zine Al Abidine Bin Ali, charged over the deaths of 22 anti-government protesters during Tunisia’s January 2011 revolution.
Living in exile in Saudi Arabia, Bin Ali is being tried in absentia along with 22 co-accused, including two former interior ministers, for the killings in the northwestern towns of Thala and Kasserine.
The court has been mulling the verdict for the past week after a six-month trial that has embittered the victims’ families, convinced theywill never know the truth about the killings.
BinAli, who ruledTunisia for 23 years, faces the death penalty for voluntary homicide or complicity in the deaths, while the military prosecutor has requested “the toughest penalties possible” — life imprisonment, according to lawyers — for his co-defendants.
The victims’ families and their supporters say the trial of the exiled Bin Ali is no more than a smokescreen, a populist ploy aimed at veiling the truth and appeasing the plaintiffs.
They fear the truthwill never come out about who gave the orders to fire on demonstrators in a crackdown that left some 600 wounded in addition to the 22 dead.
Burning questions
“We don’t want pity,” said Helmi Chniti, whose brother Gassen was killed in Thala on January 8, 2011. “I’ve devoted all my time for the past year and a half to uncover the truth, and today there are still burning questions with no answers.”
Thosewho died in Thala and Kasserine were among more than 330 Tunisians who were killed during the popular uprising sparked when a vegetable seller set himself ablaze over ill-treatment by police on December 17, 2010.
Defendants at the trial in Kef, some 170 kilometres southwest of Tunis, have pinned responsibility on a “securitymonitoring cell” or “the operations room” of the interior ministry— without ever naming names.
“We don’t give a damn about Bin Ali!” said one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, Anouar Al Bassi. “It’s a masquerade. Whatever happens, the verdict will be unfair and the truth will not come out.”
His colleague Hayet Jazzar added: “The Tunisian people and history need to know what happened, but I’m afraid that this will end with big payouts for the families, while what they want is truth and justice.”
She said requests for ballistic analyses, records of police deployments, transcripts of orders from the interior ministry’s command centre and telephone conversations have all been in vain. Jazzar and the victims’ families are also indignant that so few of the defendants are in custody.
The defence, for has asserted that the its part, trial has proceeded correctly. “We have been heard, we have been able to argue properly,” said Sami Bargaoui, who has asked for the dismissal of charges against his client, the prominent former director of anti-riot police Moncef Laajimi. “It’s a very sensitive trial,” he admitted.
Some point to a precedent in Egypt, where the June 2 verdict against ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak was seen as far too lenient.