Tunisian court overturns journalist Khalifa Guesmi's 5-year jail term

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
7 Mar 2024 06:11

Guesmi's lawyer says the Court of Cassation invalidated the five-year verdict and ordered it to be reviewed.

Tunisian journalist Khalifa Guesmi (C) speaks with journalists after his release in front of the Tebourba prefecture on March 6, 2024. (Photo by SOFIENE HAMDAOUI / AFP)

A Tunisian court overturned on Wednesday a journalist's prison sentence for revealing information about the security services, his lawyer confirmed, paving the way for a retrial to examine the original verdict.

Khalifa Guesmi, a correspondent for Tunisia's Mosaique FM radio station, was convicted in November and handed a one-year prison sentence that was later increased to five years on appeal.

The Court of Cassation "invalidated the five-year judgement and ordered it to be reviewed," Guesmi's lawyer, Rahal Jallali, was quoted as saying by AFP.

According to an AFP correspondent, Guesmi left prison Wednesday evening. The journalist remains under prosecution, according to his lawyer, under Article 34 of the anti-terrorism, law which "punishes with 10 to 20 years' imprisonment" anyone who publishes information "for the benefit of a terrorist organisation."

Journalists and civil society representatives gathered in Tunis on Wednesday to show support for Guesmi and to call for his immediate release.

Local and international NGOs have launched several calls for his release and condemned the five-year prison sentence as "a sham verdict" and "a major setback for the judicial system."

On Wednesday, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) welcomed what it called "a first step towards justice" for Guesmi and said it "should be followed by his immediate release and acquittal."

Jailed since September 3, Guesmi was found guilty of "participating in the intentional disclosing of information related to interception, infiltration, and audiovisual surveillance or the data collected therein."

He was held for a week in March 2022, after Mosaique FM published on its news website information about the dismantling of a "terrorist cell" and the arrest of its members.