On Tuesday, the Tunisian Interior Ministry announced that it had captured five prisoners who had escaped from prison last week after being convicted of “terrorist” offenses.
The ministry stated in a press release that various units of national security, the national guard (police), and the army successfully apprehended four terrorists who had recently escaped at 5:00 am on November 7 (0400 GMT).
According to the ministry, the four individuals had taken refuge on Mount Boukornine, situated approximately 30 kilometers (19 miles) southeast of the capital, Tunis.
On November 5, authorities arrested a 44-year-old inmate named Ahmed al-Malki, with assistance from residents of the Ettadhamen district, a densely populated neighborhood in Tunis, as reported by the ministry.
According to the ministry, the five prisoners, who were serving sentences connected to terrorist cases, managed to escape from Mornaguia prison on October 31 in an operation that authorities described as meticulously orchestrated.
Police suspected that two members of the group were involved in an armed bank robbery near the capital on the previous Friday.
Malki, known as “Al-Somali,” was serving a 24-year prison sentence for his involvement in the murders of opposition figures, including Chokri Belaid.
The assassination of Chokri Belaid in February 2013, who was the leader of the leftist Democratic Patriots’ Unified Party, sent shockwaves through the country and triggered a political crisis that ultimately led to the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha party relinquishing the power it had held since the 2011 revolution.
A few months later, the left-wing parliament member Mohamed Brahmi was also assassinated. The investigations into both of their deaths have remained ongoing to this day.
Belaid and Brahmi were both staunch critics of the Ennahdha party, which had a significant presence in both parliament and government for the majority of the past decade.
The assassinations were claimed by jihadist militants.
