The Secretary General of the Republican People’s Union, Lotfi Mraihi, was referred on 10 April 2026 to the Criminal Chamber of the Court of First Instance in Tunis, alongside other defendants in the same case, on charges related to financial and banking offences, transactions between residents and non-residents, and money laundering.
This referral follows the same court’s decision on 16 March 2026 to reject his request for release and to postpone the trial. At the hearing held on 10 April 2026, the Chamber sentenced him to six years’ imprisonment for money laundering, banking offences, and transactions between residents and non-residents, according to a judicial source.
It is worth noting that the First Investigating Judge at the Court of First Instance in Tunis had previously ordered the extension of Lotfi Mraihi’s pre-trial detention in February 2025.
In a related development, Lotfi Mraihi, who had also been a potential candidate in the 2024 presidential elections, was arrested on the night of Wednesday, 3 July 2024, pursuant to a search warrant issued against him. The arrest followed an investigation initiated by the Sub Directorate of Economic and Financial Investigations, under the authority of the Public Prosecutor at the Court of First Instance of Tunis 1, after he published a video on 2 April 2024 on his official social media page announcing his intention to run in the presidential elections.
On 5 July 2024, the Investigating Judge issued a detention warrant against the Secretary General of the Popular Republican Union Party, Lotfi Mraihi, and Leila Kallel, the party’s Executive Director, on charges related to forming an agreement for money laundering and transferring assets abroad.
A second detention warrant was subsequently issued by the Public Prosecutor on suspicion of offering financial incentives to influence voters. On 19 July 2024, the Criminal Chamber of the Court of First Instance in Tunis sentenced him to eight months’ imprisonment and imposed a lifetime ban on standing for elections.
In December 2024, the Criminal Chamber No 14 of the Court of Appeal in Tunis upheld an additional sentence of six months’ imprisonment on charges of using information and communication systems to publish and promote false information, in relation to videos circulated on social media platforms.
In this context, Intersection Association for Rights and Freedoms calls on the authorities to halt what it describes as the erosion of political life in Tunisia and the restriction of civic and political space. This includes the arrest of opposition party leaders and the use of what the Association terms “judicial recycling,” enabling repeated prosecutions through cases framed around money laundering or the criminalization of freedom of opinion and expression.
Intersection Association further stresses that these charges cannot be separated from the broader political context and the deteriorating climate in the country since 25 July 2021, particularly in relation to the 2024 presidential elections and the increasing restrictions on fundamental rights, including freedom of expression and political participation.
Intersection Association also denounces the growing number of cases of a political nature, warning that this trend undermines the fundamental guarantees of a fair trial.
