Mohamed Abbou,  Tunisian lawyer and militant of the human rights has been condemned during the night of 28^th  to 29^th April 2005 to three years and six months of  jail. In a tense climate, defence qualified the trial  of " politics for offence of opinion ". 

This verdict has been pronounced by the 4th criminal  Chamber of the court of first instance of Tunis. The Court judged the lawyer for two  distinct cases :  publication of an article on internet denouncing the torture in Tunisian  jails and complaint of a lawyer for " violence ". 

He has also been condemned to two years of jail for " violence " in the second case relative to a complaint put down by a Tunisian lawyer, arguing of a physical inability of 10%. 

The accused had asked for the postponement of the case. The defence didn't plead, seeing a " plot " to discredit the lawyer accused .

Me Abbou, 39 years, bailed one year and half of confinement for " publication of nature writings to disturb the public " order and " judicial " process slander, two chiefs of accusation kept in the setting of the first business.

Tunisian human rights campaigners have criticised a Tunisian judge for his handling of the case of detained lawyer Mohammed Abbou, whose protest in which several advocates were injured by police, includling Abbou’s wife.

Abbou, 39 year old, a lawyer and member of the National Council for Civil Liberties in Tunisia (CNLT), has been arrested  on 2^nd  2 March and detained on charges of disseminating false information, libel, enticing people to break the law and publishing offences.

Abbou was arrested in connection with an August 2004 article denouncing torture in Tunisia in the wake of outrage over photographs of torture in the US run Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq. But most observers attribute the charge to his published views on the government’s decision to invite Israeli premier Ariel Sharon's to Tunisia to attend a November UN summit on the information society.