By Yosra Ouanes
TUNIS (AA) – Recent statements by the Ennahda movement implied a “threat” to the Tunisian presidency, President Caid Beji Essebsi said Thursday.
Earlier this week, Ennahda criticized a recent meeting between Essebesi and the lawyers of two leftist leaders assassinated in 2013, saying the president’s direct involvement in the case threatened to undermine judicial independence.
In a Thursday address to Tunisia’s National Security Council at the presidential palace in Carthage, Essebsi blasted Ennahda's assertion, saying: “We will not tolerate these threats and will resort to the judiciary. ”
“I am not opposed to any party and have no problem with [Ennahda], ” the president said.
“I listen to any party that wants to meet me,” he said, in reference to his meeting with the two lawyers. “But I can’t control what they say; I only listen.”
In 2013, Chokri Belaid, the leader of Tunisia’s opposition Democratic Patriots Party, and Mohamed Brahmi, a member of the People’s Movement Party, were both assassinated in separate incidents that remain unsolved to this day.
Last month, Tunisia’s judicial board accused Ennahda of maintaining “a secret apparatus ” for carrying out political assassinations — an allegation the movement strenuously denies.
