Tunisia president scraps Cairo trip
2013-02-06 15:56
Tunis - President Moncef Marzouki has cancelled his
participation in the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation summit in Cairo and
is heading back to Tunisia after the murder of opposition leader Chokri Belaid,
the presidency said on Wednesday.
"He returns early this afternoon. It has just been
decided," presidential adviser Ghassen Dridi told AFP by phone.
Marzouki was in Strasbourg on Wednesday morning, where he
took part in a session of the European parliament and met French President
Francois Hollande, and was due to fly to Cairo on Thursday.
The presidency denounced the killing of Belaid as an
"odious" crime designed to "lead the Tunisian people to violence",
calling in a statement for "restraint and wisdom."
Belaid, who headed the opposition Democratic Patriots party
and was a harsh critic of Tunisia's Islamist-led government, was shot dead as
he was leaving his home on Wednesday morning.
His family swiftly accused Ennahda, the Islamist party that
heads Tunisia's coalition government of being behind the murder.
His assassination comes at a time when Tunisia is witnessing
a rise in violence fed by political and social discontent two years after the mass
uprising that toppled the former dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
