Hommam Al Nassim 
The Tunisian Labor and Achievement Party said that its Secretary-General, Abdel Latif Al-Makki, received a summons from the Public Prosecution to appear before an investigating judge regarding the death of a former parliamentarian in 2014.
This summons came only five days after the party announced the nomination of Al-Makki, the former Minister of Health, for the upcoming presidential elections in October, in which current President Kais Saied is also expected to run.
The party said in a statement: “Within only five days of this initial announcement of the nomination, Abdul Latif Al-Makki received a summons to appear before the investigating judge on Friday, July 12, in what is known as the death case of Al-Jilani Al-Daboussi.”
The party confirmed that Al-Makki, who held the Ministry of Health between 2011 and 2024, will appear before the judiciary with a “clear conscience and confident innocence.”
The party indicated that this charge may be a reaction to Al-Makki’s candidacy for the presidential elections or part of systematic steps to fabricate cases against opponents, especially potential candidates, calling on the judiciary to look into the case objectively and impartially.
It is noteworthy that Daboussi, a businessman and parliamentarian during the era of the late President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, died on May 7, 2014, hours after his release from prison, where he had spent since October 7, 2011, on charges of corruption, embezzlement, and nepotism.
His family filed a complaint against the Tunisian authorities with the United Nations Human Rights Committee in 2019 regarding the circumstances of his death, accusing the Tunisian authorities of committing “serious violations of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, neglect and ill-treatment, and exceeding legal detention periods.”
Last June 21, the investigating judge at the Court of First Instance in Tunis decided to imprison the leader of the Ennahda movement and former Minister of Justice Nour El-Din El-Behairi in the case of Daboussi’s death.
On May 31, the judge also decided to imprison Al-Mundhir Al-Ounissi, the acting head of the Ennahda Movement, a former judicial official, and a former doctor in the same case on charges of “premeditated murder with prior intent.”
For his part, President Saied says that the judiciary in his country is independent and does not interfere in its affairs, while the opposition accuses him of using the judiciary to prosecute those who reject exceptional measures that he began on July 25, 2021, which created a crisis and severe political polarization.
These measures include dissolving the Judicial and House of Representatives, issuing legislation by presidential orders, approving a new constitution through a popular referendum, and holding early legislative elections.
Tunisian forces consider these measures “a coup against the revolutionary constitution (the 2014 Constitution) and a consecration of absolute individual rule,” while other forces supporting Saied see them as “correcting the course of the 2011 revolution,” which overthrew Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
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