18 June 2021; MEMO: Tunisia's Ministry of Justice yesterday announced that it was opening an investigation into the attempted assassination of President Kais Saied.
"The Minister of Justice authorized the Public Prosecution, represented by the Public Prosecutor at the Court of Appeal in Tunis, to conduct the necessary inquiries and investigations into the circulated news about an attempt to assassinate the President of the Republic," a ministry statement said.
On Tuesday, Saied said during a meeting with ex-government chiefs that "the dialogue should not be held to search for making deals with those inside or the outside [the country]… Whoever wants to engage in dialogue does not go abroad secretly seeking to remove the President of the Republic in any way possible, including assassination."
The Tunisian head of state did not name people or entities at the time, but the statement sparked widespread confusion in light of a sharp state of political polarisation in the country.
Earlier this year, the Tunisian Presidency announced the existence of a plan to target Saied by means of a poisoned envelope that reached the Carthage Palace and caused Presidential Court Director Nadia Okasha to suffer a temporary malaise.
Later in the same month, the Public Prosecution said in a statement that "after conducting technical tests on the suspicious envelope using advanced devices and scientific methods … it turned out that it did not contain any suspicious toxic, narcotic, dangerous or explosive substances."
