Ennahda leader Rached Ghannouchi decided on Friday not to appeal the life sentence issued against him in connection with the file of his party's "secret apparatus".

Ghannouchi's defense team said on Friday (June 12th) in a statement to national and international public opinion that its client "refuses to appeal the life sentence issued against him because he is fully convinced that there are no minimum elements for a fair trial."

In its statement, the commission insisted that "the sentence issued against Ghannouchi is unfair and the misinformation declared by the complainants is considered incitement against him and against the members of the party he heads."

"The hate speech adopted by political figures in connection with this case against Ghannouchi and the Ennahda party, which he heads, is a legal criminal," it added.

The defense confirmed that "no weapons of any kind have ever been seized on any of the defendants, including Ghannouchi, and no document has ever been seized in connection with the case called a secret apparatus at any stage and on any of the defendants, including the deputy, neither in his personal capacity nor in his partisan capacity."

The commission pointed out that "the interview published by the former director general of national security confirmed that the party headed by the client has no organizational relationship with any terrorist organization, and that there is no parallel or secret security organization in the ministry to which he belongs."

Tunisian judiciary sentences Ghannouchi to life in prison

On Tuesday evening, June 2nd, the Criminal Chamber of the Court of First Instance in Tunis issued its verdicts in what is known in the media as the "Ennahda secret apparatus case", in a broad file that included 35 defendants, in which the sentences ranged from ten years in prison to life imprisonment, in addition to cumulative sentences of dozens of years.

The court sentenced the movement's head Rached Ghannouchi to 30 years in prison, 42 years against his deputy Ali Larayedh, 96 years in prison for Mustapha Khadr and 76 years for Reda Barouni, Tahar Boubahri, Kamel Aifi and seven other defendants.

At the time, Ennahda's defense team described the verdicts issued in the party's "secret apparatus" file as "shocking and of a political nature, meaning the death penalty is imprisonment," as defense team member Mokhtar Jama'i said: "The verdicts were shocking to us and it is an episode of settling political scores," considering that "we did not expect the verdicts to reach this extent, we expected that the case would not be heard because we presented all the evidence of innocence."

Regarding the appeal of the first instance ruling, Al-Jama'i explained, "The verdict is still the subject of consultation, we will communicate with our clients and decide, and our position will be to confront the unjust ruling."

It is noteworthy that the defense team, before the issuance of the sentences, asked the court to delay the case in order to "provide a preview of an episode broadcast on 1/6/2026 in which the Director General of National Security presented data and not analyses that prove that there is no secret apparatus and no connection to any of the defendants to terrorist groups or assassinations."

Case Background: From the 2013 Assassinations to the Opening of the Judicial File

The origin of this file dates back to the beginning of 2022, when the Public Prosecution filed a complaint issued by the defense team of the late politicians Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi, who were assassinated in February and July 2013, respectively.

At the time, the defense team accused the so-called "secret apparatus of the Ennahda movement" of involvement in the assassinations, in addition to other charges related to espionage and infiltration of state institutions.

Ennahda, on the other hand, consistently denies these accusations, considering them politically motivated and not based on conclusive judicial evidence.

The Public Prosecution at the Court of First Instance in Ariana had pledged the file at the beginning, before deciding in September 2023 to abandon it in favor of the Judicial Pole for Combating Terrorism, which later completed the investigations and referred the file to the competent criminal department.

This verdict comes in a sensitive political and judicial context in Tunisia, where terrorism-related files intersect with intertwined political contexts dating back to post-2011, specifically the post-2013 assassinations that shook the Tunisian political scene and reopened files related to security, intelligence, and secret organizations.