Former presidential candidate and businessman Nabil Karoui is in jail again in connection with a money laundering case.
as reported from Tunis Lilia blaise
It was an expected arrest in legal circles, as an investigation was still ongoing since the first arrest of Nabil Karoui in August 2019. He had at that time been released in October the same year a few days before the second round of the presidential vote in which he was a candidate.
Nabil Karoui appeared in court on Thursday, December 24 to hear the investigating judge’s expertise, according to the latest information he could not justify the origin of funds for several million dinars.
The investigation would also have revealed fraudulent mechanisms put in place by Nabil Karoui and provided evidence of money laundering through the creation of companies based abroad for some of them.
His party, the Au cœur de la Tunisie, which has 30 seats in parliament, said in a statement “to have confidence” in justice, adding that the presumption of innocence prevails as it is an arrest and not a conviction.
This case comes in a fragile political context, where Nabil Karoui’s party and the Islamist party Ennahda had started talks about a partial cabinet change of Hichem Mechichi’s government, undermined by a corruption case involving the Minister of the Environment, fired and arrested earlier this week .
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