Tunisian president\'s former Media Adviser, Ayoub Massoudi A former Tunisian official who faces a prison term for \"insulting the army\" has said he will take the country’s military leadership to the international court .
Ayoub Massoudi, former Media Adviser to Tunisian President Monsef Marzouki, made the announcement on his Facebook page on Saturday, saying he intends to work alongside lawyers as well as national and international human rights organisations to file the case, which is already being prepared.
The former official was accused of \"insulting the military institution and undermining its prestige\" in August 2012. He resigned from his post in protest against military leadership’s failure to inform the president that former Libyan minister Baghdady Al-Mahmoudy was to be handed over to Libyan authorities.
An initial ruling, handing Massoudi a suspended sentence of four months, was later quashed by the Tunisian Court of Appeal, which sentenced him to a year in prison. His case is to be considered by the Court of Cessation – the highest court in Tunisia – on Wednesday.
But the former adviser has little faith in Tunisian justice, accusing the military judiciary of a “lack of neutrality and independence” and arguing that civilians should not be tried in front of military courts. His case was a matter of freedom of expression, he added.
His Facebook statement also said that he felt a new politics of \"sanctifying\" the military leadership was underway in Tunisia.