Tunisian Minister of Justice: 199 Algerians imprisoned in terrorism and irregular immigration cases
Tunisian security and judicial authorities have recently intensified security campaigns to combat violence, terrorism, drug trafficking, irregular migration, and corruption.
This campaign came in the wake of a series of meetings held at the Presidential Palace in Carthage under the supervision of President Kais Saied and in the presence of the Ministers of Interior Kamal El-Feki and Justice Leila Jaffal and the Directors-General of National Security and the National Guard.
These developments also coincide with a working session recently held by the Tunisian Minister of the Interior with the US Ambassador to Tunisia, Joey Hood, on “security coordination between Tunisia and the United States in the areas of combating terrorism, organized crime, and irregular migration.”
Tunisian Interior Minister Kamal El-Feki and US Ambassador to Tunisia Joey Hood in a new meeting to coordinate security and combat terrorism and irregular migration (Tunisian media)
The official spokesman for the Tunisian Ministry of the Interior, Faker Bouzghia, announced yesterday that the National Security Forces of various specialties, in cooperation with the Ministry of Justice, succeeded in arresting dozens of defendants in various serious crimes, and a number of the most prominent people involved in drug cases, including a doctor, a lawyer, and smugglers from the provinces. The western part of the country is not far from the Tunisian-Algerian border.
The spokesman for the Ministry of Interior explained that thousands of young people, school and university students, and young people in cities and villages have become vulnerable to drug traffickers’ ambushes. However, security forces recently succeeded in seizing thousands of supplied pills, injections and narcotic substances.
Extradition
On the other hand, Tunisian Minister of Justice, Leila Jaffal, announced yesterday before Parliament that about 199 Algerians are currently imprisoned in Tunisian prisons in cases of terrorism, drugs, smuggling, and irregular immigration. The minister, who heads the Public Prosecution and the Prison Guards Foundation, denied what was reported by Arab and international media sites about the presence of 800 Algerian prisoners in Tunisian prisons, but she stressed the danger of the growing number of Tunisians and Algerians accused of involvement in terrorism, drugs, organized crime, and irregular immigration.
Security forces are on alert in the border areas with Algeria (Tunisian press archives)
In the context of attempts to combat terrorism and transnational organized crime, the Tunisian Parliament approved, on Tuesday, an extradition agreement between the government of the Republic of Tunisia and the government of the Republic of Algeria, in the presence of Minister of Justice Leila Jaffal.
The Tunisian authorities and members of Parliament explained that the top priorities of the two countries currently are “confronting violence and organized crime and strengthening strategic security cooperation relations between Tunisia and Algeria in the face of common challenges, most notably the security challenges that require further coordination of efforts to confront terrorism, smuggling and organized crime on the borders between the two countries, and handing over “Those wanted by justice.”
Flee across the border
The ratification of this judicial security agreement between Tunisia and Algeria coincides with the increasing number of fugitives from justice and the search for them across the land borders in both directions.
The phenomenon of criminals and terrorists fleeing between Tunisia and Algeria is an old phenomenon, so the authorities of the two countries decided to besiege it in response to previous decisions of the conferences of Arab Ministers of Interior and Justice.
National parliamentarian Badr al-Din al-Qammoudi reported that some sources estimate that the number of “missing Algerians” in Tunisia is “very high.” He added that a large number of them “were thrown into Tunisian prisons between the years 2008 and 2022 without their families knowing their fate and depriving them of their most basic rights,” as he put it.
A number of parliamentarians also asked the Minister of Justice about the file of those arrested in the “case of conspiring against state security.” Others called on the Ministry of Justice to “break its silence” and provide more clarifications about the progress of research regarding dozens of detainees and those accused of terrorism, conspiracy, and corruption.
In their interventions and questions addressed to the Minister of Justice, a number of representatives reviewed the conditions of the courts in the regions of the country, which they described as “catastrophic” with regard to their infrastructure, their lack of a sufficient number of judges, human resources, and work equipment, and the limited capabilities available in them, while thousands of cases are registered, with long adjudication periods. They also raised the issue of the recorded shortage in the number of judges at the judicial and financial poles, despite the large volume of cases referred to them.
New suspensions
In a related context, Tunisian security sources revealed the arrest of four members for “belonging to a terrorist organization.” The same security sources stated that their members arrested the terrorists in three Tunisian governorates, noting that they had previously been sentenced to prison.
The Tunisian Ministry of Interior announced earlier yesterday the arrest of six other terrorists on terrorism-related charges.
2024-01-16 17:22:24
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