Haitham Kehili

Judicial authority
Sousse 2 Court of First Instance, as well as the Financial District

• September 10, 2021: On September 10, 2021, a specialized security unit raided the Instalingo headquarters, located in El-Kalaa El-Kubra, Sousse Governorate. The Public Prosecution then authorised the detention of 6 people, including a journalist, his sister, and his wife’s mother, without any connection to the case, while 3 people were included in the investigation: the owner of the company, his wife, and a third party who was later revealed to be one of the company’s employees.
• September 13, 2021: An investigation was opened by the Public Prosecution at the Court of First Instance in Sousse 2 against the Instalingo company and 10 people, including the company’s owner (Haithem Al-Kehili), his wife, and members of his family who have no connection to the company and its activities. The suspects involved in the case were referred for investigation, on suspicion of committing crimes related to money laundering, as part of a conspiracy,  exploitation of the facilities granted by the characteristics of the job and professional and social activity, an assault intended to change the state’s structure and force the population to attack each other, and to incite disorder, murder and looting, committing an offensive ct against the head of state, and attacking external state security by attempting to harm the integrity of Tunisian territory, in accordance with the provisions of Articles 61, 67, and 72 of the Penal Code, and Chapter 94 of Law No. 26 of August 7, 2015, relating to combating terrorism and preventing money laundering. In a post published by Haitham Al-Kehili, the owner of Instalingo, on the night between Monday and Tuesday, September 14, 2021, on his personal Facebook page: “After investigating more than 60 of the company’s employees outside the framework of the law, after subjecting me to surveillance outside the framework of the law for months, after forcing me to liquidate my business in Tunisia… after all this and more… the state security forces just kidnapped my sister and took her to an unknown destination, outside the framework of the law, and in an unequivocal violation of all laws.”
• September 18, 2021: The investigating judge in charge of the Instalingo case decided to release all 7 people detained for investigation on bail. The decision was appealed by the Public Prosecution at the Sousse 1 Court, and the case was then referred to the indictment chamber of the Court of Appeal, which, on October 5, 2021, issued detention warrants against 4 defendants, namely the company’s agent, the human resources officer, the production manager, and the editor-in-chief journalist, two of which were activated.
• March 2022: The investigating judge decided to transfer the Instalingo case to the anti-terrorism judicial branch after tremendous pressure from the Public Prosecution, which insisted on implicating political parties in the case without any justification, which caused the investigating judge to forfeit the case and transfer it to the judicial body that is more qualified to consider the cases that were said to include suspicions of terrorism and money laundering. However, the Public Prosecution itself appealed the decision and stated in the local media, through the official spokesman for the Sousse 2 Court, that the case was devoid of any suspicion of terrorism, which led to the transfer of the case. Hence the case was transferred to the indictment chamber in the Court of Appeal in Sousse, which upheld the Public Prosecution’s decision.
• Subsequently, and due to the refusal of the investigating judge, Sami Mhiri, to comply with pressures from the Public Prosecution, represented by Idris Harrik and Ali Abdelmoula, aimed at bringing charges against prominent political figures from the Ennahda Movement and the Dignity Coalition without any justification, the investigating judge was dismissed as part of the list of 57 judge dismissed by presidential decree. Kais Saied referred to Sami Mhiri without naming him in the speech announcing the dismissal of the judges, where he said: “There is a judge who was presented with 8 terrorists and he released them.”
• After the dismissal of Sami Mhiri, the case remained pending, until June 2022 when a new case was initiated in the same court for the same charges and by the same public prosecutor, Idris Harik, and it was referred to a new investigating judge, Amer Ellouz, under direct orders from the then Minister of Interior Taoufik Charfeddine, after the case file was filled with additional fabrications, and all of Charfeddine’s opponents, including security officers and businessmen, were put together and their files, which had no connection to the case at all, were added to the new case file.
• June 20, 2022: 9 defendants appeared before the investigating judge, and after their interrogation, detention orders were issued for 5 of the defendants, including the former official spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, Mohammed Ali Laroui, bloggers Salim Al-Jebali and Achraf Barbouch, businessman Adel Al-Dadaa, an isolated security officer, and a commercial director. A company and another accused. The investigating judge also decided, following interrogation sessions that continued until dawn the next day, to keep the journalist Lutfi Al-Hayduri, the businessman Adel Al-Dada’a, and the political activist Bashir Al-Yusufi, on release, with a travel ban on all of them.
• The Public Prosecution authorized the opening of an investigative investigation against 27 defendants, including the head of the Ennahdha Movement, Rached Ghannouchi, his son-in-law, Rafik Abdel Salam, his daughter, and others on the run and foreigners, in order to commit crimes related to money laundering within the framework of an agreement and by exploiting the facilities granted by the characteristics of the job, professional and social activity, and the intended assault. Changing the state body, forcing the population to confront each other, inciting pandemonium, killing and plundering on Tunisian soil, committing a brutal act against the head of state, and attacking the external security of the state by attempting to harm the integrity of Tunisian territory in accordance with the law relating to combating terrorism and preventing money laundering in accordance with the provisions of Articles 61, 67 and 72 of the Penal Code. Chapter 94 of Law No. 26 of 2015 relating to combating terrorism and preventing money laundering. The penalties for some charges may reach the death penalty.
• June 28, 2022: The Indictment Chamber decided to overturn the decision of the investigating judge at the Court of First Instance Sousse 2, in charge of the “Anstalingo” case, to keep the three defendants at liberty. The Indictment Chamber decided to issue prison detention cards for them and return the case file to the investigating judge to continue the investigation. However, The deposit against the three was not done.
• The investigative research also included 6 new parties, including Tawfiq Al-Sebai, the former Director General of the competent departments of the Ministry of Interior (retired), the representative in the dissolved parliament, Sufyan Toubal, a well-known businessman in Sousse, and others. The investigating judge issued new cards for 3 defendants, including Al-Sabai, and kept the rest on release with a travel ban on them.
• November 10, 2022: The head of the Ennahda Movement and the speaker of the dissolved parliament, Rached Ghannouchi, were interrogated by the first investigating judge in the second office of the Court of First Instance in Sousse 2, Amer El Louz, in the presence of a group of lawyers. His interrogation lasted about 14 hours and concluded that he was kept on release with a travel ban after he was detained. The Public Prosecution had requested the issuance of a prison card against him.
• May 23, 2023: The First Assistant Prosecutor at the Court of First Instance in Sousse issued 2 prison tickets against the head of the Ennahda Movement and the speaker of the dissolved Parliament, Rashid Ghannouchi, in the case.
• June 19, 2023: The first investigating judge in the court’s second office concluded the investigations related to the investigative file after completing them, and decided to dismiss the charges against 15 suspects, including a female journalist, and to refer 36 defendants to the indictment chamber in a state of release or suspension.
• The indictment chamber again overturned the investigating judge’s decision and issued deposit tickets against a number of those against whom charges were withdrawn, including journalist Shatha Al-Hajj Mubarak, production manager Hamdi Boumaiza, human resources director Ashraf Khadrawi, and company agent Ashraf bin Omar.
• A decision was then issued to suspend investigating judge Amer Al-Louz from work and refer him to investigation, and weeks later, a second decision was issued to suspend Public Prosecutor Idris Harik and his assistant Rushdi Ben Ramadan from work and refer them to investigation, without issuing any explanations of the reasons.