By Agence France Presse (AFP)
Thursday, March 03, 2011

Tunisia freed the last of its political prisoners Wednesday under an amnesty granted after the fall President Zine al- Abidine Ben Ali in January, a prisoner rights activist said.
The remaining prisoners were released in batches since Monday under an amnesty that came into force Feb. 19, said International Association for the Support of Political Prisoners secretary general Samir Ben Omar.

“The last political prisoners in Tunisia were freed on Wednesday,” Omar told AFP, adding they included people charged under the previous regime’s terrorism laws.

“In total about 800 political prisoners have been freed in groups since Monday evening,” he said. “Between 300 and 400 were freed Wednesday,” he said, adding: “Tunisian prisons have been emptied of political prisoners.”
The amnesty applied to “all those who were imprisoned or prosecuted for crimes as a result of their political or trade union activities,” the official TAP news agency reported.
Justice authorities had said that about 3,000 prisoners had been conditionally released days before the amnesty became official.

The announcement of the amnesty on Jan. 20 was one of the first acts by the interim government, appointed when Ben Ali’s 23 years in power came to an end on Jan. 14 when he fled to Saudi Arabia.
Among those who were freed were “victims of the terrorism law applied by the Ben Ali regime to say that it was at the forefront of the fight against terrorism,” Omar said.

They included Saber Ragoubi, a Salafist Muslim sentenced to death for terrorism, he said.
He and his co-accused were found guilty of involvement in clashes with security forces between December 2006 and January 2007 that left 14 people dead, including a security agent, according to the official toll.

Ragoubi had denied the charges and Amnesty said his trial had been unfair and he said he was tortured in custody. Eight of his co-accused were sentenced to life in prison and 19 others to jail terms of up to 30 years.
Meanwhile, the official TAP news agency reported Wednesday a court in Tunis has said it will rule March 9 on a call for Ben Ali’s party to be dissolved.

The demand for the dissolution of the Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD) – which was suspended in February – was made by the Interior Ministry, whose lawyer also called for “the seizing of the assets inside and outside the country which he [Ben Ali] acquired by stealing the money of the people.”

Lawyer Faouzi Ben Mrad justified his request on the grounds of “the violation” by the RCD of the law on political parties of 1988, by the Constitutional amendments initiated by the party which installed a “totalitarian regime,” as well as the “bloody attacks carried out by elements of the RCD” in Tunisia after Ben Ali fled.
Since it was created in 1988 the RCD has never been audited and has never filed annual accounts, Ben Mrad added. He said the party had not respected the legal obligation to inform the Interior Ministry “within a week” of the change of its leader after Ben Ali fled.

Lawyers for the party said it had not violated the Constitution and insisted that there was no proof it had been involved in the violence.
The court’s decision to suspend judgment until March 9 came at the end of a turbulent hearing in which the RCD defense team was heckled, with those present yelling “get out,” the phrase used in the demonstrations to get rid of Ben Ali. – AFP