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Khayam Turki

Arrested since: 11/02/2023

Khayam Turki is a graduate of IHEC Carthage, Sciences Po Paris and the American University in Cairo. He will begin his professional life in the early 90s, during which he will hold positions of responsibility in North Africa or Europe. It will affect several sectors including international trade and finance. Throughout his international career, he will consolidate his address book and will therefore build up a solid network of contacts in several countries. In 2011 came the revolution. The new democratic momentum that was taking hold in the country convinced more than one to engage in political life. Khayam Turki had decided to devote himself to the Ettakatol party where he exercises the functions of strategy adviser and director of the 2011 electoral campaign. His name will be proposed to occupy the post of Minister of Finance to succeed Jalloul Ayed. Finally, it is Houssine Dimassi who will be designated.

He will be elected in 2013 deputy secretary general of his party, but in 2015 and will decide to leave Ettakatol definitively. After his resignation, Khayam Turki will launch “Joussour” a think tank which offers studies and research in the field of public policies and which intends to promote the emergence of new skills. It is from there that the circles that gravitate around Kais Saïed will stick the label of lobbyist on him, as if it were a heinous crime.

2020, a year of political crisis, a year which already bore the beginnings of the current great stampede. Prime Minister Elyes Fakhfakh resigns after only a few months as prime minister. Political maneuvering got the better of him. Candidates had to be proposed to the President of the Republic. The parties are working on it and sending the documents to the order desk of the presidential palace. In these documents, the name of Khayam Turki is mentioned by several parties, in particular Tahya Tounes, Al Badil, Ennahdha and Qalb Tounes. In other words, there was logically a great probability that he would be the next tenant of the Kasbah. Except that the President of the Republic did not hear it that way and he took a certain Hichem Mechichi out of his bag.

Today, Khayam Turki finds himself accused of the worst plots. He would face the death penalty. For the time being, his lawyers claim that his file is empty and that he has not been questioned on the facts that the president accuses of those arrested.

Date of arrest

11/02/2023

Cases

Conspiracy case (1) as a suspect

Participation in an agreement for the assault intended to change the state’s structure and conspiracy against the internal security of the state

Detained under 10 articles of the Tunisian Penal Code – including Article 72, which prescribes the death penalty for attempting to “substitute the state” – and over 12 articles of the 2015 anti-terrorism law

President Saeed described the detainees as “terrorists” and accused them of plotting to undermine the state and manipulate food prices to stir up social tension, in videotaped statements published on February 14 on his official Facebook page.

Reasons of arrest

Participation in an agreement for the assault intended to change the state’s structure and conspiracy against the internal security of the state

Competent authority

Civil courts

Actions and violations

February 11: His house was raided, arrested and taken to an unknown destination by the Anti-Terrorism Police (Amnesti).

Abdel Aziz Al-Said, the lawyer of political activist Khayyam Al-Turki, said that his client’s house was raided and searched at dawn by security agents who did not disclose the security authority that assigned them to raid, highlighting that his representative was taken to an unknown destination without the knowledge of the Public Prosecution.

Authorities initially denied lawyers access to him under the 2015 anti-terrorism law.

A judge in the anti-terrorism judicial pole in charge of the investigation questioned him about his meetings as a group and with foreign diplomats. The evidence presented against the detainees in the case includes messages on their mobile phones about conversations with foreigners, including diplomats, as well as messages exchanged between the defendants about the possibility of mobilizing opposition to what they called the “coup” of President Saeed. All of these acts are protected by the right to freedom of expression, association and assembly, which the Tunisian authorities are obligated to respect under international human rights law (Amnesty)

March 10, 2023: He entered into a brutal hunger strike with a number of detainees in the conspiracy case, on the grounds of what they said was a “policy of abuse” they were being subjected to in prison.

Poor living conditions: Lawyer Enas Harath stated, in a post on her Facebook, after visiting Jawhar Ben Mubarak, Reda Belhaj, Issam Chebbi, Ghazi Chaouachi, and Lazhar Al-Akrami, and after meeting colleagues who visited Khayyam al-Turki, that they were “deprived of the right to wash and exercise, and they were also moved to rooms Extremely filthy, all bugs and insects, and not equipped with any sanitary facilities, as human needs must be relieved in them in a hole on the ground, in addition to depriving them of the most basic rights of prisoners such as treatment,” she confirmed. Enas Harath also considered that “there are instructions from the regime to the prison administration to endanger the lives of political detainees by placing them with carefully selected public right prisoners, most of whom were imprisoned for premeditated murder cases,” according to her post.

Biography

Professional life
The son of a diplomat, he studied in various establishments around the world. A graduate of the Institute of Higher Commercial Studies in Carthage, the Institute of Political Studies in Paris and the American University in Cairo, he began his career in 1992 with several responsibilities mainly related to finance but also to trade. and real estate in various companies in North Africa, Europe and the Middle East.

Political career
He became a member of Ettakatol in 2011, where he served as strategy advisor and director of the electoral campaign for the 2011 elections. At the same time, he participated in the fight against exclusion and poverty in cities1.

Elected Deputy Secretary General of the party in 2013, he left it definitively in April 20153.

In May 2015, he co-founded the Joussour think tank, which specializes in the development of public policies.

Following the resignation of head of government Elyes Fakhfakh in July 2020, he is proposed as a candidate to replace him with Ennahdha, Au coeur de la Tunisie, Tahya Tounes and Al Badil Ettounsi.

On February 11, 2023, Khayam Turki was arrested by the police on suspicion of “conspiracy against state security and agreement to overthrow the regime in place” according to Ghazi Chaouachi.

Private life
He is married and the father of three children.

Birth date

05/07/2023

Gender

Male

Political Affiliation

Ettakatol Party

Photo Album

Tags

US: End Economic Support for Tunisian Coup Government

Recent Election Lack Legitimacy, National Dialogue Needed To End Crisis (Washington, D.C., 12/23/2022)  The Biden Administration should end U.S. support to Tunisia’s dictatorial government headed by President Kais Saied, pursuant