Former Tunisian president sentenced to third life imprisonment

Tunis, Tunisia (PANA) – Former Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was on Tuesday sentenced to life imprisonment by the military tribunal of Sfax, in southern Tunisia, for “voluntary manslaughter”, the third time the courts have handed down such a sentence.

He was tried for the death of a young demonstrator and injury to three others during the suppression of demonstrators hostile to his regime held in Sfax.

During the same Sfax trial, the Interior minister in the regime of Ben Ali, Rafik Belhaj Kacem, was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment while the former chief of the presidential guard, Ali Seriati, was acquitted.

This is the third time the ousted president has been sentenced to life imprisonment for bloody of demonstrations in the north-west of the country and in the region of Tunis.

Ben Ali, who was ousted from power in January 2011 by a people’s uprising after ruling the country with an iron fist for 23 years, has found refuge in Saudi Arabia.
-0- PANA BB/AAS/IBA/MSA/MA 30 April 2013