In May 2001, Zoulaikha Gharbi, who currently lives in France, together with her husband, a political refugee, filed a complaint for torture against Mr. Ben Saïd, a diplomat, whom she recognised as the chief of the Jendouba Police Station where she was tortured, under his orders, in October 1996. After being informed that legal proceedings had been initiated against him, the accused, Khaled Ben Saïd, immediately fled to Tunisia, where he is still working at the Ministry of the Interior.
Mrs. and Mr. Gharbi, civil parties in the proceedings against Ben Saïd, in front of the Nancy tribunal after the verdict
“This trial has shown that torture has been institutionalized as a means to repress all opposition and as a tool of terror” said Omar Mestiri, of the Comité national des libertés en Tunisie (CNLT).
Demonstration before the Criminal Court of Nancy at the opening of the trial against Ben Saïd
“This verdict, just at a time when France is restricting freedoms, shows that an independent judiciary also exists”, stated Mr. Eric Plouvier, Mrs. Gharbi’s lawyer.
“Accusations that the civil parties had manipulated the case for political purposes shot back like a boomerang against the defence whose strategy was shown to fail through this increased sentence”, said Patrick Baudouin, Honorary President of FIDH and lawyer for FIDH and LDH (Ligue des droits de l’homme et du citoyen), the two organisations that joined Mrs. Gharbi as civil parties in the proceedings.
This decision is a tribute to the courage of Mrs. Gharbi who has been fighting a legal battle for nine years so that, at last, the truth can be heard.
“Although France recently adopted a controversial law restricting the possibility to institute legal proceedings for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, the judges thus reasserted the importance of universal jurisdiction as an indispensable instrument in the fight against impunity,” said Jean-Pierre Dubois, president of LDH. [2]
