Former Prime Minister Ali Larayedh and opposition Ennahdha party condemned the trial as politically motivated.
Tunisian court sentenced former Prime Minister Ali Larayedh to 34 years in prison for allegations, and he facilitated combatants' departure to Syria - the opposition's allegations strongly denied.
"I am neither sympathetic, nor neutral, nor tolerant of violence, terrorism, nor tolerant," Larayedh told the judge on Friday.
The ruling is the latest blow to the Ennahad Party, the main opposition to President Keith Seed.
Larayedh, who served as prime minister from 2013 to 2014, has been detained since 2022.
His verdict comes a week after the arrest of vocal announcement critic Ahmed Souab, a new prison term has sent all sorts of conspiracy charges to political opponents, media figures and businessmen.
According to the TAP of the State News Agency, the sentences apply to eight individuals, with prison terms ranging from 18 to 36 years old. The court did not name the person convicted with Larayedh.
Ennahdha denied all allegations related to terrorism, believing the case is part of a broader campaign against dissent, a case that has intensified since SAIED suspended parliament and assumed the right to sweep in 2021.
However, human rights groups say the crackdown on opposition voices, including imprisonment by Sorab, marks a dangerous escalation. Many warn that in the years since the 2011 revolution, Democrats have gained a steady retreat in the birthplace of the Arab spring.
Saied faced protests Thursday as opponents took to the streets of Tunisia, accusing him of using the judiciary and police silence.
The demonstration was the second in a week, and it was growing alarms as critics believed it was the authoritarian drift that triggered the Arab Spring.
On the Habib Bourguiba Avenue, anti-dance protesters chanted, including "Saied away, you are a dictator" and "the people want the fall of the regime", echoing calls from the 2011 uprising that dispelled former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Sed’s supporters held a counter-pull on the same boulevard, shouting “No foreign intervention” and “people want to scramble again.”
The opposition accused Saied of undermining the democracy won in the 2011 revolution because he occupied additional power when he closed his elected parliament in 2021 and introduced a ruling through a decree before taking on the judiciary’s mandate.