On the morning of Monday, April 21, security forces raided the home of lawyer and former administrative judge Ahmed Souab. After the house was searched, Souab was referred to the investigating judge in the Judicial Counterterrorism Pole, who granted permission for him to be held in custody. The National Unit for Investigating Terrorism Crimes is conducting the investigation.

According to a statement made by an official judicial source to the state-run Tunis Afrique Presse agency, Souab was arrested as part of an investigation into “a range of terrorism charges and common crimes related to them”. This was confirmed by a leaked notice of 48 hours of custody sent by the first investigating judge in the Twelfth Chamber of the Judicial Counterterrorism Pole to the president of the regional branch of Tunisia’s bar association.  The notice stated that Souab faces several charges, including “forming an organization and conspiracy connected to crimes of terrorism, procuring – by any means – websites, documents, and images for a terrorist organization and conspiracy and people connected to crimes of terrorism, and placing skills and expertise at the service of a terrorist organization and conspiracy”, as well as “harming others via the public telecommunications network and deliberately using information and communication networks and systems to produce, propagate, publish, send, and prepare false news, data, and rumors and forged documents”.

Souab faces charges under the Anti-Terrorism and Money Laundering Law, articles of the Penal Code and Telecommunications Code, and Decree no. 54 on Combating Crimes Related to Information and Communication Systems.

These legal texts have been harnessed to condemn Souab – a member of the Committee for the Defense of Political Detainees – for a statement he made on the evening of Friday, April 18, in front of the First Instance Court in Tunis. His words came after the court’s bench announced that it would deliberate and pronounce its ruling on a case concerning a supposed conspiracy against the state’s domestic and foreign security – widely known as “the conspiracy case” – following the session.

A Statement That Reflects a Broader Context

Souab was one of the lawyers who assembled on Friday evening in front of the First Instance Court in Tunis on Bab Bnet Street. Standing before several journalists, he criticized the judiciary’s subordination to the political authority in the conspiracy case. “Knives are at the throats of not just the detainees but also the president of the judicial department about to make the ruling”, he said, before making a throat-cutting gesture.

Hence, likening the judiciary’s subordination to a knife held to the throat, which is a metaphor commonly used in everyday life and the media, was deemed a grave act that rises to the level of crimes of terrorism and crimes that threaten the public. Over the two days preceding the raid, pro-President Kais Saied pages circulated Souab’s statement, deeming it a threat to slaughter judges and demanding his arrest. The Public Prosecution in the Court of Appeal in Tunis responded, allowing an investigation based on the statement to be opened.

Ahmed Souab – the lawyer, former administrative judge, and cofounder of the Administrative Judges Union – has previously made statements describing the current political subordination of the Tunisian judiciary in the conspiracy case and other cases like it. Last February, he told a private local radio station that “The situation of the Tunisian judiciary today is not just a crisis. Rather, it is just like the situation in Gaza. The judiciary is living in a state of total ruin”.

Souab also used the term “slaughter” earlier in reference to Saied’s decision to dismiss 57 judges in early June 2022. The Legal Agenda introduced this phrase in an article published at the time, and it was then adopted by a number of legal experts, media figures, politicians, and people who follow public affairs. The use of the term “judicial slaughter” [al-madhbaha al-qada’iyya] in the Arab region traces back to the collective dismissal of more than 189 Egyptian judges under late president Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Most of Souab’s statements and metaphors have been related to a certain political and judicial context, namely the executive authority’s systematic targeting of the judicial authority since 25 July 2021. These attacks have involved incitement and slander against judges in official political discourse, the dissolution of the Supreme Judicial Council, and the dismissal of 57 judges without trial and noncompliance with a court decision to reinstate 49 of them. They also include the abuse of executive memorandums for transferring judges – a mechanism the Tunisian Judges Association has condemned as a means of dominating the judicial landscape by controlling judges’ careers.

Depriving the Defense in the Conspiracy Case of a Strong Voice

Souab was arrested just two days after the political detainees in the conspiracy case were handed harsh sentences ranging from four to 66 years of imprisonment. The arrest also coincided with a press conference held by the defense, which explained the case’s political background, the various breaches that marred it, and the pressure exerted on the judiciary during the course of it.

In the wake of the initial arrests in the conspiracy case in February 2023, if not earlier, Souab established his presence in the media as a member of the defense. He distinguished himself through his wit and ability to explain the case’s dimensions in a manner that everyone could understand. He highlighted the contradictions and lack of evidence in the case by choosing sentences that would stick in people’s minds. In most of his media appearances, he emphasized that the case was based primarily on a single line that appeared in a report by a former director of the judicial police: “I have information about the existence of a conspiracy against state security”. The same director who opened the case is now in prison, Souab would add.

In a somewhat satirical tone, Souab would frequently say – during conferences or in response to journalists – that the case “could be taught academically as an example of a case lacking all the material elements for a conviction”. On 11 April 2025, while attending the case’s second hearing, Souab spoke to several journalists about the content of his pleadings: “I have committed not to argue the merits. I said to the judges whom I know – which is a privilege that comes with my age – that what goes around comes around and they should rule based on their consciences. I also told them that if I were in their position (i.e. a judge of three decades), I would completely refuse to rule under such conditions”. He then criticized the poor conditions under which the hearing was held and the absence of the defendants, protesting the decision to try them remotely and the undermining of defense rights. Summarizing the event, he said that as far as the authorities are concerned, “a hollow case should be accompanied by hollowed-out due process”.

In parallel with his role as a lawyer in the conspiracy case, Souab has also keenly asserted his political opposition to Saied’s regime. He has described the regime in the following manner: “President Kais Saied began with dictatorship when he issued Order no. 117. Dictatorship, in the legal sense, is the monopolization of the authorities by one person. We then moved on to a phase of despotism following the crackdown on freedoms. Now, after the abolishment or taming of the intermediary bodies and the division of society into minorities, we are living in a fascist system”.

This article is an edited translation from Arabic.