Tunisia has issued an international arrest notice against former President Moncef Marzouki.
Gatekeepers News reports that the arrest notice comes a month after Marzouki called on France to end support for the current administration after President Kais Saied on July 25 sacked the government, suspended the legislature and seized control of the judiciary, later moving to rule by decree in the North African nation.
Days after Marzouki urged France not to support Saied’s “dictatorial regime”, the President ordered the justice ministry to open an inquiry into the 76-year-old ex-leader in October.
Although, State television did not give any reasons for Thursday’s warrant.
Marzouki, a vocal critic of Saied, has severally accused the President of carrying out a coup.
In October, he told anti-Saied demonstrators in Paris that Saied had “plotted against the revolution and abolished the constitution”.
Saied responded days later and accused “traitors that seek refuge overseas” of threatening Tunisia’s sovereignty, ordered the enquiry against him and revoked his diplomatic passport.
“He is the greatest enemy of Tunisia,” Saied said.
Marzouki who was president from 2011-2014, also responded that he was “not concerned by any decision issued by these illegitimate authorities”.
The former Tunisian leader who lived in exile in France for 10 years during the rule of strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, slammed “a nascent dictatorship in which the dictator is confused with the nation, recalling the Ben Ali regime, under which opposing the dictator was considered treason”.
He also accused Saied of importing the “Egyptian model” of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who took power in 2013 after leading the military’s overthrow of former President Mohamed Morsi.
