Tunisia's president has rebuked his prime minister over the extradition of a close associate of former Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi, prompting fears of a split in the ruling coalition. The case goes to the heart of the power-sharing agreement in Tunisia's interim government which is ruled by a coalition consisting of a moderate Islamist party that won the most seats in parliament and two secular ones.
Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali is from the Islamist Ennahda party, while President Moncef Marzouki is from the liberal Congress for the Republic. Marzouki said his prime minister overstepped his authority when he ordered the extradition of Al-Baghdadi Al-Mahmoudi, Qadhafi's last prime minister.
"Extradition has more to do with Tunisia's foreign policy than the judiciary, and foreign policy is the prerogative of the president of the republic," he said in a statement conveyed by his spokesman, Adnan Mancer. "It was an illegitimate decision taken unilaterally." The statement added they were ready to bring the matter to the constitutional assembly, Tunisia's first elected body. Marzouki, a former human rights campaigner, had opposed the extradition on the grounds that Al-Mahmoudi might not get a fair trial in Libya, and his life could be in danger.
Al-Mahmoudi, 67, was arrested in September for illegally crossing the frontier into Tunisia as he tried to flee to Algeria, where Qadhafi's family members had sought refuge. Since then Libya had been clamouring for the repatriation of Al-Mahmoudi to answer for crimes it says he committed during Qadhafi's regime. Tunisian courts had approved the extradition. But officials from Libya's former regime have not fared well in the hands of the Libyan rebels, with Qadhafi and one of his sons executed upon capture last year.
In January, 15 Tunisian and international human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, signed a statement opposing Al-Mahmoudi's extradition, saying he risked death or torture if he was returned to Libya. Marzouki said that the three parties in the government had agreed to wait until after Libya's elections, set for July 7, as well as a report from a Tunisian fact finding commission that went to the country in May to determine if a fair trial was possible. The commission report has not yet been issued.