Detained for more than two years in the Mornaguia civil prison, the businessman and president of the CSCH (Chebbian Sports Crescent), Taoufik Mkacher, has decided to break the silence. In a letter made public, he calls on the authorities on the fate of businessmen incarcerated in economic cases, pleading for an effective resumption of the criminal reconciliation process and denouncing a situation that he considers “unfair” et “harmful”both for the prisoners and for the national economy.
Arrested “brutally” on October 20, 2023, Taoufik Mkacher claims that his incarceration has had serious consequences on his health, the effects of which he says he is still experiencing. He specifies that he is being prosecuted in the context of a case linked to loans taken out by one of his companies with the Société Tunisienne de Banque (STB). According to him, there was no unpaid debt at the time of his arrest and the guarantees provided largely covered the amounts granted. He also emphasizes that he is the only one kept in detention in this case, while nine banking executives involved are at large.
“Businessmen do not belong in prison”
In his message, the businessman insists that “prison has never been an answer to economic issues, nor a solution for the country’s economy”. He recalls having opted, four months before his arrest, for the path of criminal reconciliation, convinced that it would allow economic disputes to be resolved responsibly. He claims to have respected all procedures, participated in all planned meetings and assumed the experts’ costs, although no agreement was reached.
Taoufik Mkacher deplores a climate in which, according to him, “the simple fact of being a businessman has become a source of suspicion.” He also notes the gap between official declarations, affirming that the place of businessmen is not in prison and that criminal reconciliation should be relaunched, and the reality on the ground, which he considers unchanged.
In this context, he evokes the choice of many businessmen to leave the country, while those who remain detained in Tunisia, in his words, have made the choice “to face their situation with confidence in justice and in the word given”.
The businessman calls for an urgent and effective relaunch of criminal reconciliation, with conditions that he describes as “reasonable, non-binding and actually enforceable”. He believes that this approach should allow the immediate release of businessmen who have joined this process, recalling that their place “was never the prison”.
He concludes by emphasizing that the first victims of these detentions remain the families of those concerned, before sending a message of thanks to those who give him their support, and a thought to all the detainees.
S.H
