Sakhr El Materi expected to leave Seychelles for Qatar |07 August 2019

Sakhr El Materi is expected to leave Seychelles for Qatar, according to IWATCH.

IWATCH added that they have been made aware that Sakhr El Materi had put his house in Seychelles for sale and that he intends to leave for good with his Seychellois wife and children. It is likely that El Materi intends to settle in the state of Qatar, added IWATCH.

The son-in-law of ousted Tunisian President Ben Ali, Sakhr El Materi has been living in Seychelles since 2012.

Following the overthrow of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in the 2011 Arab Spring, El Materi left Tunisia with his family to live in Qatar, and then subsequently came to Seychelles, where he applied for political asylum in February 2013.

As Seychelles law does not make specific provisions for political asylum status, El Materi was granted a 12-month residence permit, based on the premise, according to the Seychelles immigration department, that “the conditions exist in Tunisia at this point for a free and fair trial if Mr El Materi were to be repatriated back to face the charges set out against him there”. His residence permit was renewed several times.

Following a trial in Tunisia, El Materi was sentenced in absentia to 16 years in prison and fined million for corruption and property fraud.

El Materi, his wife, three children and entourage were granted a residence permit after El Materi’s lawyers submitted the request saying the Tunisian national is still at risk of persecution and would not be granted due process of the law by the Tunisian authorities if he were forcibly returned to the Tunisian Republic.

Mr El Materi’s lawyers argued that his life continues to be at risk, citing instances of politically motivated assassinations in Tunisia.

In June 2017, the government announced that it had granted a Seychellois passport to Mr El Materi as well as his children.