TUNIS, Tunisia — A Tunisian appeals court on Thursday sentenced former prime minister Ali Larayedh to 24 years in prison in the long-running “Tasfir” case, which accuses senior officials of helping Tunisian jihadists travel to Syria after the 2011 revolution. The ruling reduced Larayedh’s earlier 34-year sentence, which had been handed down in May 2025.
Larayedh, a senior figure in the Islamist opposition party Ennahda, has been detained since 2022 and has consistently denied the accusations, saying the case is politically driven. Reuters reported that Ennahda again condemned the latest ruling as part of a broader crackdown on dissent under President Kais Saied, who has ruled with sweeping powers since 2021.
The case centers on allegations that, while Ennahda was in power, Tunisian authorities enabled or failed to stop the travel of militants to Syria, Iraq and Libya during the height of regional jihadist mobilization. Thousands of Tunisians are believed to have joined Islamic State and other extremist groups in those years, making the issue one of the country’s most politically explosive post-Arab Spring controversies.
Reuters said seven other defendants were also sentenced on Thursday, including former Interior Ministry officials, with prison terms ranging from three to 24 years. That broadly matches your note that multiple co-defendants were sentenced alongside Larayedh, though Reuters’ account says the upper end in this ruling was 24 years.
Larayedh served as Tunisia’s prime minister from 2013 to 2014, during the turbulent period following the Arab Spring. His prosecution has become one of the highest-profile legal cases involving Ennahda figures and former officials from the post-revolution era. Human rights groups and opposition figures have argued that such prosecutions increasingly reflect politics as much as justice, while Tunisian authorities maintain that the judiciary is acting independently.
One point where the current reporting differs slightly from your draft: Reuters says Larayedh still has the right to appeal the conviction and sentence, even after Thursday’s ruling, so this may not yet be the final legal word in the case.
