Tunis: Tunisia's former Prime Minister and the former Secretary General of the Islamist party Ennahdha, Hamadi Jebali, was arrested at his home in the eastern coastal province of Sousse, media reported.
Jebali's lawyer said in a statement that a group of policemen searched Jebali's home on Tuesday morning before arresting him and seizing his cellphone and personal computer, the official news agency Tunis Afrique Presse (TAP) added. The lawyer also said to local media that Jabali had been taken to be interrogated in El Aouina, a suburb of the capital Tunis.
Jebali's wife Wahida al-Jabali informed that around 20 Tunisian security officers raided their family home with a warrant from the public prosecution and took her husband, but did not provide a reason, news portal middleeasteye.net reported. .
She added to Anadolu Agency that her husband had recently undergone heart surgery, and that she held Tunisian authorities responsible for his health.
Tunisian officials did not immediately comment on the arrest.
The 74-year-old served as Tunisia's prime minister between December 2011 and March 2013, and was a leading figure in the Ennahda party. He was Ennahda's secretary-general for over 30 years, before leaving the party in 2014.
In June last year, Jebali was briefly detained on suspicion of money laundering. Government critics dismissed the arrest as part of a campaign to settle political scores.
In a move widely described by critics as a coup, President Kais Saied unilaterally suspended parliament and dissolved the government in July 2021, a move he argued was a step towards "true democracy", involving a clean break with the political class, institutions and "corrupt elites".
That was followed by a series of detentions of leaders from the political opposition and even the judiciary.
Last week, Tunisian authorities placed Abdel Karim Harouni, a senior member of Ennahda, under house arrest without providing a reason.
Earlier this year, authorities also arrested Ennahda party leader Rached Ghannouchi, who is also a chief ideologue of Ennahda and one of the most outspoken critics of Saied.
(Inputs from agencies)