Tunisian authorities have issued a national wanted notice for a television chief who disappeared after being sentenced to eight years in jail for misappropriation of funds, the prosecution said Friday.
Sami Fehri, owner of one of Tunisia’s main private television stations and presenter of popular TV shows, was on trial over the illegal use of state television funds in connection with his production company Cactus Prod, under the regime of former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali who died in Saudi Arabia last year. The late president’s wife, Leila Trabelsi, still resides in Saudi Arabia.
Authorities in #Tunisia have issued a national wanted notice for Sami Fehri, a television chief who disappeared after being sentenced to eight years in jail for misappropriation of funds.https://t.co/LjOcztYxKm
— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) March 13, 2021
The court dropped the charges against an advisor to Ben Ali and five former CEOs of public television tried in the same case after ten years of prosecution.
His associate at the time, Ben Ali’s brother-in-law Belhassen Trabelsi, was also sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison, judicial official Mohsen Dali said.
Fehri and Trabelsi were prosecuted as accomplices to Ben Ali, who was toppled in Tunisia’s 2011 uprising and died in 2019, for financial damage to the country’s public television.
Police were unable to locate Fehri to take him into custody, and authorities issued a national search notice.
Rumours circulated that he might have fled the country on a private boat to Europe, but Dali said that “for the moment, there is no concrete proof that he has fled abroad.”
Fehri had already spent several months in detention in connection to the inquiry in 2013 and also 2019, when authorities banned him from leaving the country.
#Tunisia: the Public Prosecutor at the #Tunis Court of 1st Instance, on Friday, issued a wanted notice against Sami Fehri to enforce a court judgement sentencing him to 8 years in prison in the Cactus Prod. case, said court spokesperson. #TAP_En pic.twitter.com/xGdj7HPewv
— TAP news agency (@TapNewsAgency) March 12, 2021
A wealthy businessman described in a leaked 2008 US diplomatic cable as Ben Ali’s “most notorious family member”, Trabelsi initially fled by yacht to Italy in 2011. Excesses by the Trabelsis were among the main catalysts of the 2010 uprising that eventually toppled Ben Ali.
Belhassen Trabelsi has been accused of fraud, embezzlement and laundering criminal proceeds.
After three years on the run, he was arrested in March 2019 in the south of France.
In January, a French court rejected Tunisia’s request for his extradition, citing a “real risk of inhumane and degrading treatment” with his lawyers pointing out his brothers died in jail.
Trabelsi had held 51 percent of the shares in Cactus Prod, but authorities seized his stake after the uprising.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
