TUNISIALIVE, MOSAïQUE FM (Tunisia), BBC NEWS (UK) , AFP
TUNIS - Chokri Belaid, a senior leader in Tunisia "s left-leaning opposition Democratic Patriotic party, was shot dead as he was leaving his house in Tunis.
"My brother was assassinated. I am desperate and depressed," Belaid's brother Abdelmajid Belaid told the Agence France Presse news agency.
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Chokri Belaid - Photo: Rais67
After being shot in the neck and in the head, Belaid was rushed to Ennasr clinic in Tunis, the news website tunisialive reports .
No one has yet taken responsability for the shooting, and the motives of the murder remain unclear. BBC News notes that Chokri Belaid was a prominent secular opponent of Tunisia's moderate Islamist-led government , and just this past Saturday Belaid had accused "mercenaries" hired by the Ennahda party of carrying out an attack on a Democratic Patriotic meeting.
Tunisia’s Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali, of Ennahda, quickly condemned the attack, calling Chokri Belaid’s assassination "a crime against Tunisia" on the news radio station Mosaïque FM .