Inspection Report on Bechir Al-Akermi Published by The Belaid and Brahmi Defense Committee

July 5, 2021 The Defense Committee for the martyrs Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi began publishing the reports of the General Inspection of the Ministry of Justice regarding Bechir Al-Akermi.

The commission commented that the attempts to rescue Al-Akermi are still in full swing, stressing that what these reports prove is a resounding defeat for justice and a clear interference in the judiciary by Rached Ghannouchi and his loyalists who want to disrupt the course of justice and save Al-Akermi at any cost, after it was proven that he covered up dangerous terrorist files, including what implicates Ennahda movement and its leaders.

The report on the petition filed by Bechir Al-Akermi against Al-Tayeb Rached on charges of inflating wealth revealed that Rached “justified the charges attributed to him related to the inflating of wealth and justifying the sources of funding for the acquisition of some of his properties by obtaining loans or selling others.”
The report added that “inflation of wealth and corruption of the source remains, in a practical way, related to the penal prosecution, the subject of the undertaking of the investigative judge, and in principle departs from the scope of disciplinary prosecution and the responsibility arising from it.”

Concerning the current administrative research on the subject of the petition, the report states that “as long as there is no data available that the source of property and money is tainted by corruption associated with the use and exploitation of judicial capacity and powers, deviation in procedures, and adapting the outcomes of cases, directly or indirectly, to illegal and illegitimate goals, even if it is not possible to prove direct financial compensation, such as Bribery or moral remuneration represented in the judiciary and affairs for the benefit of others in order to benefit from the interests or protection or others, it is not possible to raise disciplinary accountability for this purpose, and that the multiplicity of properties constituting the financial disclosure of the judge and its importance is not necessarily a presumption of the corruption of its source of funding as long as the legitimacy of the sources of funding can be proven, especially the lack associated with corruption.”

As for the charges against Bechir Al-Akermi, the report revealed that Rached accused Al-Akermi in petitions filed against him of “exploiting his position in a misplaced manner by defrauding the procedures and harnessing the judicial police, the judicial anti-terrorism pole, and the economic and financial pole to strike anyone who considers him his enemy by placing a person in the dock” then fabricating charges against him by various means by creating fake arguments and putting pressure on the parties and trying to conclude deals with them, represented by offering them to testify against the exhibitor in return for taking judicial decisions for their benefit, similar to what happened with the attorney general of the Court of Appeal in Tunis, who Al-Akermi classified as his enemy after his disagreement with him in the file of the two martyrs Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi and in the file of Chafik Jarraya.

He added that Al-Akermi “did not, when he was an investigative judge at the Anti-Terrorism Pole, hear Amer Belazi, accused in the case of the assassination of the two martyrs, Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi, who admitted to destroying the two firearms that were used in the assassination, or of the other defendants who testified against him, and he did not bother to ask for a copy of their research to be added to the case file pledged by him, and he did not explain the reason for excluding those researches.”

The report also indicated that Rached “discovered, upon reviewing the file of the two martyrs, published before the indictment department, that there was a criminal complaint against Al-Akermi filed by the defense committee of the two martyrs on charges of participating in premeditated murder” and that “the aforementioned complaint was received by Al-Akermi when he was in the plan of a republican prosecutor who did not make a decision in including it, nor  did he decide its fate according to the law, but he deliberately added it to the case file in an attempt to cover up the actions attributed to him.”

The report added that Rached discovered that “Al-Aekrmi saw, during his review of the file of the two martyrs, that two computers were seized by the main defendants in the case,” and that despite that “he did not perform the necessary technical tests in their regard, in addition to the disappearance of the search records related to the accused, Amer Al-Belazi and his companions, which include their confessions before they were made.” The two computers were stolen along with another group of computers from the Court of First Instance in Tunis and Belazi and those with him retracted their confessions on the pretext that they had been subjected to torture, despite the judicial police’s insistence on documenting the audio and video interrogation process and saving them on a magnetic disk, which in turn was lost from the case file before Al-Akrami opened an investigation against the judicial police agents from for torture.”

The report added that Rached discovered that “Al-Akermi saw, during his review of the file of the two martyrs, that two computers were seized by the main defendants in the case,” and that despite that “he did not perform the necessary technical tests in their regard, in addition to the disappearance of the search records related to the accused, Amer Al-Belazi and his companions, which include their confessions before they were made.” The two computers were stolen along with another group of computers from the Court of First Instance in Tunis and Belazi and those with him retracted their confessions on the pretext that they had been subjected to torture, despite the judicial police’s insistence on documenting the audio and video interrogation process and saving them on a magnetic disk, which in turn was lost from the case file before Al-Akermi opened an investigation against the judicial police agents for torture.

The report also revealed that Rached stated in his petition that “the pace of enmity increased between Al-Akermi and the former republic’s attorney, especially after the latter pledged a media report from the so-called Ahmed Al-Alouini on the charges against businessman Chafiq Jarraya and security agents Imad Achour and Saber Al-Ajili and referred the file to the military judiciary.”

Rached added that “Al-Akermi became angry when he learned that the military judiciary had pledged to the matter and decided to harm the Republic’s attorney, taking advantage of his close relationship with Imad Achour and Al-Ajili and their lawyers, by urging Al-Ajili’s lawyer to file a complaint against Al-Alouini on charges of perjury and by opening an investigation that ended with saving the case for the lack of legal elements. The accusation department supported this decision, in addition to the fact that an appeal in the case was rejected, leading to a final decision.

Rached stressed that “the research conducted in the file revealed strong suspicions that Al-Ajili and Achour deliberately used their positions to commit attacks against state security, which the Court of Appeal assessed as crimes of a terrorist nature and decided to entrust Al-Akermi with it, which requires him to open an investigation into it, but as soon as he received the file, he issued a decision to keep it, in clear violation of the law.”

Rached added, “Al-Akermi’s actions were characterized by transgressions, lack of impartiality, directing research, burial of facts, fabricating charges and files, collusion with some political parties in addition to exceeding the limits of his authority and the powers entrusted to him by law. An investigation before he authorizes the opening of investigations.”

Rached also added, “Al-Akermi’s actions were characterized by abuses, lack of impartiality, directing research, burying facts, fabricating charges and files, colluding with some political parties, and exceeding the limits of his authority and the powers entrusted to him by law. He adapts the files according to his whims and carries out lengthy research that resembles investigative work before he authorizes the opening of investigations.”

Rached accused Al-Akermi of “attempting to fabricate cases against him after examining his property list.” On September 8, 2020, i.e. a week before leaving his position, he wrote to the attorney general at the Court of Cassation, asking him for copies of decisions issued by other disciplinary departments in violation of all norms, ignoring the presumption of innocence and the rights and freedoms of individuals guaranteed constitutionally and legally, and deliberately adding the numbers of these cases to the topic that he pledged with the aim of abusing him and he took advantage of his capacity to unjustly access his personal data, which makes him subject to tracking in accordance with the Personal Data Protection Law.