27 February 2025 :

A Tunisian court sentenced eight defendants to death on February 25, 2025 over the 2013 assassination of leftist opposition figure Mohamed Brahmi, according to local reports.
Charges included "attempting to change the state's nature" and "inciting armed conflict", among others, as three defendants received additional death sentences for "deliberate participation in premeditated murder", local media reported.
A ninth defendant who is on the run was sentenced to five years in prison for "failing to report terrorist crimes to the authorities", according to the reports.
The verdict marked the first set of rulings in the case of Brahmi's assassination, which took place outside his home on July 25, 2013, amid Tunisia's turbulent post-revolution political landscape.
Tunisia still hands down death sentences, particularly in "terrorism" cases, even though a de facto moratorium in effect since 1991 means they are effectively commuted to life terms.
Brahmi, a nationalist left-wing politician and member of Tunisia's Constituent Assembly, was an outspoken critic of the Islamist-inspired government at the time.
His assassination shocked the nation, coming less than six months after the killing of another prominent leftist figure, Chokri Belaid, who was also gunned down outside his home.
Elected in Sidi Bouzid, the birthplace of the 2011 revolution that toppled ex-president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and later swept through the Arab World, Brahmi was shot 14 times with 9mm bullets by two assailants in front of his wife and children, according to authorities.
His family accused the ruling Islamist party, Ennahdha, of being behind the murder -- an allegation the party vehemently denied.
Jihadists affiliated with the Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for both Brahmi and Belaid's assassinations.