TUNIS: A Tunisian court on Tuesday sentenced the country’s richest businessman, Marouan Mabrouk, son-in-law of former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, to 20 years in prison, and former prime minister Youssef Chahed to six years, in corruption cases, lawyers said.
Mabrouk has been held in prison since late 2023. Chahed, who served as prime minister from 2016 to 2020, is currently abroad.
Mabrouk is part of an influential family with business interests in trade, banking, communications and car dealerships. Mabrouk also controls a major supermarket chain and owns shares in BIAT Bank, French telecoms operator Orange and a biscuit company.
He is one of Ben Ali’s few relatives who did not flee Tunisia after a revolution in 2011 that toppled Ben Ali.
Mabrouk, however, has faced criticism that he received support and protection from successive governments after 2011.
Mabrouk was charged with money laundering, stealing funds from state companies and obtaining illegal benefits from Chahed’s government, while Chahed was sentenced to six years for his cabinet’s approval for lifting the freezing of Mabrouk’s funds in European banks.
The court also sentenced six other former ministers to six years in prison on the same charges as Chahed.
President Kais Saied, who seized control of the government and dissolved parliament in 2021 in a move that the opposition described as a coup, created a committee in 2022 to collect money from business owners allegedly involved in financial corruption cases, to reduce Tunisia’s budget deficit.
Saied had said that these business owners must pay and that the state would not give up what is owed to it.
He said the state would collect no less than $5 billion. However, after several years, the reconciliation committee has not announced any amounts had been received.
Tunisia jails tycoon Mabrouk and ex-PM Chahed on corruption charges
https://arab.news/zpnjy
Tunisia jails tycoon Mabrouk and ex-PM Chahed on corruption charges
- Mabrouk has been held in prison since late 2023
- Chahed, who served as prime minister from 2016 to 2020, is currently abroad
Israeli military says unintentionally struck UN agency truck in Gaza
- “Our teams are taking extraordinary risks every day to keep humanitarian operations and life-sustaining services running,” UNOPS Executive Director Jorge Moreira da Silva said in a statement, calling for an investigation into the incident
TEL AVIV: Israel’s military said on Friday that a “firing component” launched by its navy unintentionally struck a fuel truck belonging to a United Nations agency in Gaza the previous day, an incident that prompted the agency to publicly call for a full investigation.
The United Nations Office for Project Services, which oversees fuel distribution in Gaza, said that the empty fuel truck was struck on Thursday around 5 a.m. from the direction of the sea, causing damage to the vehicle. There were no injuries.
“Our teams are taking extraordinary risks every day to keep humanitarian operations and life-sustaining services running,” UNOPS Executive Director Jorge Moreira da Silva said in a statement, calling for an investigation into the incident.
“They should not have to do that under fire,” he said.
In response to Reuters questions, the Israeli military said that the incident occurred during defensive naval activity, and that a firing component deviated from its intended trajectory.
The fuel truck sustained “minor damage,” the military said in a statement. The military did not say what type of munitions had been fired, or what had been the navy’s intended target.
“The incident was reviewed, and lessons were learned accordingly,” it said, without providing further details.
The fuel truck had been on its way to the Kerem Shalom crossing when it was struck, and the truck’s movements had been coordinated with Israeli authorities in advance, UNOPS said.
