The Criminal Chamber specialised in terrorism cases at the Court of First Instance in Tunis continued on Tuesday to hear the defence arguments of the defendants in the Chokri Belaid assassination case. There are 23 defendants in the case, 6 of whom are at liberty and the rest in custody. The lawyers unanimously agreed in their arguments to ask the court to dismiss the case against all their clients, saying that they are "the weakest link in this case and are just ordinary names behind which bigger and more important names and parties are hidden". At the beginning of the session, the prosecutor argued that the case of martyr Chokri Belaid did not start on February 6, 2013, but was prepared well in advance, adding that the facts prove that the 23 defendants involved in the case embraced the Salafi jihadist ideology, and that the defendants played different roles in the assassination operation, from planning to surveillance and tracking to execution. The prosecutor called for maximum and harshest sentences f or all those proven to be involved in the case. He also called for the law to be applied to the defendant, Houssam Frikha, who died in prison last October. Habiba Ben Farah, lawyer for the defendants, called for the annulment of the proceedings in this case in order to establish the innocence of the defendants, given the length of the trial in this case, which lasted more than 10 years, and its "negative effects" on the defendants and the verdict itself. "One of the conditions for a fair trial is the speedy resolution of cases," she argued. The lawyer pointed out that most of the interrogations were based on the initial reports, which she said were "marred by several violations such as torture, threats and ill-treatment of the accused". "Some confessions were obtained under threat and therefore cannot be used after all this time", in addition to what she considered "the absence of a number of testimonies and statements related to the case file". For his part, the defendants' lawyer, Samir Ben Amor, argued that, with the exception of the family, the other individual plaintiffs (the WATAD party, the UGTT, the Forum for Economic and Social Rights and the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women) did not have the legal capacity to bring a civil action. He said his clients were "hostages" after the charges against all of them were dropped, but the prosecution overturned the verdict and charged them "under media and political pressure". All the defendants in the case, both those in custody and those at liberty, were present, with the exception of Ezzeddine Abdellaoui, Mohamed Amine Gasmi, Ahmed Melki, Mohamed Amri, and Ahmed Aouadi, who were brought from their prison in Mornaguia but refused to appear before the court. During the court session on Friday, March 15, the specialised criminal chamber specialising in terrorism cases at the Court of First Instance in Tunis scheduled the continuation of the defence lawyers' arguments for March 19. The hearings had begun on February 6. Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Pres se