President Kais Saied called for the initiation of legal proceedings against all those who stole the assets of the Tunisian people after January 14, 2011, as he met with the Minister of State Property and Land Affairs, Mohamed Rekik and the General Commissioner for State Disputes, Ali Abbas at the Carthage Palace Monday.
The Head of State urged speeding up the submission of requests, accompanied by all the evidence, to extend the deadline for freezing funds looted abroad, in the knowledge that the deadline for submitting these requests is the end of this month. «Any delay could benefit those who have plundered the Tunisian people’s money for decades,» according to a statement issued by the Presidency of the Republic.
Saied pointed out that requests for postponement should have been made earlier, not two days before the deadline.
The meeting discussed “the lengthy procedures and the far from innocent conditions of the states and banks where the looted funds are deposited, as some of them want an adversarial verdict against the accused, knowing for sure that they fled abroad”.
Experience has also shown that “sentences handed down in some countries are only enforced after many decades, and the people whose money was stolen receive only the crumbs left over. There are many examples of these practices, which contradict the most basic human and peoples’ rights,” the source said.
Saied pointed out that “if the Tunisian people had recovered these funds, which belong to them and amount to thousands of billions from bank accounts, real estate and movable assets, they would not be living in this financial crisis; they have the people’s money and want to lend it to Tunisians on their terms”.
The meeting emphasised the need for diplomatic action to go hand in hand with judicial action. The Head of State stressed the need to raise the issue within the framework of international and regional organisations in order to unify the positions of countries that have seen their people’s assets stolen.
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Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse