Tunisia: Former PM Hamadi Jebali arrested in home raid

Tunisian security forces on Tuesday arrested former Prime Minister of Tunisia Hamadi Jebali, his wife has said, amid a sustained crackdown on political opposition by President Kais Saied.

More than 20 security force members raided his home in Sousse to arrest him and search the premises, his wife Wahida Trabelsi told the pan-Arab news site Arabi 21.

She said that the security force members showed her an arrest warrant that had been issued by the Public Prosecution but did not give an explanation for the raid.

He was taken to the National Guard Barracks in El Aouina, in the north of the Tunisian capital of Tunis, Trabelsi said.

Jebali is a senior member of the Ennahda party, currently Tunisia's largest opposition party. He was prime minister from 2011 to 2013. He also ran in the presidential election of 2019, in which he lost out to Saied.

Ennahda, a moderate Islamist party, was the largest party in Tunisia's parliament until President Saied suspended parliament and sacked his government in July 2021, in what has widely been labelled a coup.

Saied later moved to extend his powers over the judiciary and enacting a constitution which rights groups have called "authoritarian".

He has also overseen the arrests and detention of rights activists, lawyers, journalists and political opponents -- including senior members of Ennahda.

Jebali was last arrested in 2022, for what Tunisian authorities said was suspected money laundering.

He denied the charges at the time and said the arrest was part of a campaign of settling political scores.