The Facts: Two Cases, One Cumulative Sentence

The court ruled simultaneously on two separate cases, both stemming from Bensedrine’s tenure at the helm of the TDC.

The first case centers on an arbitration settlement agreement concluded with businessman Slim Chiboub, former son-in-law of ousted president Ben Ali. The chamber found Bensedrine, former TDC member Khaled Krichi, and former State Property Minister Mabrouk Kourchid guilty of abuse of office to the detriment of public administration. Bensedrine and Krichi were each sentenced to five years in prison; Kourchid received six. Chiboub, charged as an accomplice, was handed a five-year sentence as well. The defendants were also ordered to jointly reimburse approximately 1.776 billion dinars.

The second case concerns the Franco-Tunisian Bank (Banque franco-tunisienne, BFT). Here, Bensedrine faced additional charges of forgery and use of forged documents, on top of the offenses shared with her co-defendants. She was sentenced to five years for the common charges and an additional fifteen years for the forgery counts alone — retained as the most serious offense under the principle of penalty absorption. A joint civil fine of approximately 16.9 million dinars was also imposed.

The arithmetic of these convictions — five years in the first case, twenty years in the second — brings Bensedrine’s total sentence to twenty-five years, to be served immediately.

A Trial Marred by Procedural Irregularities

Beyond the severity of the sentence, it is the fairness of the proceedings themselves that has drawn the sharpest criticism from national and international observers.

On June 18, 2026, during the first scheduled hearing, Bensedrine’s family members, journalists, and civil society representatives were physically barred from the courtroom. No official explanation was provided by the tribunal. This exclusion stands in direct contradiction to the guarantees of a fair trial enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights — ratified by Tunisia — which establishes the public nature of hearings as a fundamental right of the accused.

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), in a statement released the day before the verdict, urged Tunisian authorities to drop all charges against Bensedrine, describing them as “fabricated accusations” directly linked to her legitimate work leading the TDC. Civil society organizations have further invoked Article 96 of the 2013 Organic Law on Transitional Justice, which explicitly prohibits judicial proceedings against TDC members on the basis of the content of its final report — a provision the court apparently chose to disregard.

Bensedrine’s pretrial detention had itself raised serious legal questions. Placed in Manouba prison in August 2024 following an arrest warrant issued by an investigative judge at the economic and financial judicial unit, she launched a hunger strike on January 14, 2025, before being released on February 19 by order of the Court of Appeal, though remaining subject to a travel ban.

The Political and Economic Backdrop

This verdict cannot be understood in isolation from the political trajectory Tunisia has followed since July 25, 2021, when President Kaïs Saïed suspended parliament, consolidated executive and judicial powers in his own hands, and pushed through a constitutional overhaul that fundamentally restructured the country’s institutional framework.

Economically, Tunisia is navigating a prolonged structural crisis: sluggish growth, a chronic budget deficit, persistent inflation, and drawn-out negotiations with the International Monetary Fund that have yet to yield a comprehensive agreement. Against this backdrop of social fragility, the use of judicial proceedings against opposition figures and civil society leaders is widely interpreted by observers as a tool of political neutralization rather than a genuine pursuit of accountability.

The numbers are stark. Since July 2021, Human Rights Watch has documented the detention of more than eighty individuals — politicians, lawyers, journalists, and activists. In April 2025, thirty-seven opposition figures and human rights defenders had already been sentenced to terms ranging from four to sixty-six years on state security charges.

The TDC: The Unfinished Legacy of a Revolution

Established in December 2013 in the wake of the 2011 revolution, the Truth and Dignity Commission stood as one of the most ambitious transitional justice experiments in the Arab world. Mandated to investigate human rights violations committed since 1955, it received more than 62,000 complaints and referred 205 cases to specialized chambers, enabling prosecutions against former security officials, ministers, and businessmen connected to previous regimes.

To convict the woman who led that institution is, in the eyes of her defenders, to retroactively criminalize the very work of memory and reparation she embodied. The stakes of this case extend well beyond the fate of a seventy-five-year-old activist who has survived the prisons of Bourguiba, Ben Ali, and now faces sentencing under Saïed. What is ultimately on trial is the durability of a legal and moral legacy that post-revolutionary Tunisia built with great difficulty — and that the present authorities appear intent on dismantling.