PROTESTS AND STRIKE SWEEP TUNISIA

    Tunis, 19 Ramadan 1434/27 July 2013 (MINA) –  Protests and a general strike swept Tunisia Friday after gunmen killed an opposition head with “the same gun” used to kill a colleague, as under-fire authorities pointed to Al-Qaeda links.

     Interior Minister Lotfi Ben Jeddou said that Mohamed Brahmi was gunned down with the same weapon used to kill another opposition politician, Chokri Belaid, six months earlier. He said the main suspect in Brahmi’s killing was a member of a radical Salafist movement linked to Al-Qaeda.

    “The first elements of the investigation show the implication of Boubaker Hakim, a Salafist extremist,” he said a day after Brahmi was gunned down outside his home near Tunis by two gunmen on a motorcycle. The 30-year-old Paris-born chief suspect was already wanted in Tunisia for kidnapping and arms trafficking, the minister said.

    Public security chief Mustapha Taieb Ben Amor named 14 radical suspects — including four behind bars — implicated in the two political killings, the Saudi Gazette quoted by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

     Meanwhile, with many streets in the capital deserted, national airline Tunisair and European carriers canceled flights as street protests were expected amid allegations of government connivance in the killing. In rival shows of force, thousands of pro-government demonstrators held a solidarity rally in Tunis.

        Brahmi, 58, an MP with the leftist and nationalist Popular Movement, was assassinated outside his home in Ariana, near the capital.

       The state prosecutor’s office said an autopsy found that Brahmi, whose family and political colleagues said would be buried as a “martyr” Saturday, had been cut down by a hail of 14 bullets.

        According to analyst Sami Brahem, “the reasons behind the assassination of Chokri Belaid are the same as those which led to the murder of Mohamed Brahmi, to bring about the failure of the democratic transition.” (T/P09/E1).

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA).