The National Guard’s Research and Investigations Brigade opened an investigation following the alleged assault of a bus driver in Menzel TEMIME, under the regional transport company of Nabeul. This decision comes after the filing of a complaint by the driver, Maher Beltaïef, for physical and verbal violence inflicted by Nabeul traffic police officers.
The incident, which occurred on Tuesday, April 22, was filmed by passers -by and broadcast on social networks, causing a wide wave of indignation. The images show the driver violently mastered by several agents, then led by force to a cabin installed on the sidewalk before being embarked in an ambulance.
No arrest has yet been made in the investigation, said Anis Meddeb, spokesperson for the Nabeul Court of First Instance.
In a statement published in the aftermath of the facts, the General Federation of Transport expressed its lively concern and firmly condemned “an intolerable physical and verbal assault”. It calls for a rigorous investigation and requires that the authors be identified and sanctioned. The union also challenged interior and transport ministries so that they put in place concrete measures to protect agents in service against any form of violence.
On Facebook, Maher Beltaïef delivered his version of the facts: the police would have asked him to stop outside an official judgment to go on the bus, which he would have refused in accordance with the regulations. This refusal would then have caused a brutal intervention. “I am relatively well, even if I am psychologically exhausted by what I have undergone,” he wrote. He thanks the citizens for their support and warns his colleagues for the abuses of power.
