TUNIS, Sept 26, 2007 (AFP) - The trial of a Tunisian terror suspect repatriated from the Guantanamo Bay prison opened here Wednesday but was adjourned to the end of next month to allow the defence to prepare its case.

Abdullah Hajji Bin Omar, 51, who is accused of having links to an Islamist cell, was repatriated on June 18 from the US detention facility in Cuba where he had been held for five years.

Meanwhile, he had been sentenced in absentia in Tunisia in 1995 to 20 years in prison for alleged links to the Tunisian Islamic Front.

TUNIS, Sept 19, 2007 (AFP) - Tunisia has charged 29 suspected terrorists with 'plotting against state security', which makes them liable to capital punishment, a defence lawyer told AFP on Wednesday.

The charges are linked to incidents in December and January when Tunisian security forces shot dead several people in raids, amid tight security measures in the country to stamp out what police called 'dangerous criminals'.

ROME, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - Seven Tunisian fishermen detained in Italy since August 22 for allegedly smuggling immigrants were released Monday, activists advocating their release said.

The men, all hailing from the eastern region of Monastir, were found carrying 44 would-be immigrants on August 8, who they said were on other boats which risked capsize off Lampedusa, Italy's southernmost island.

WASHINGTON, Sept 5, 2007 (AFP) - The US-based group Human Rights Watch on Wednesday urged greater protection for US 'war on terror' detainees who fear torture and imprisonment if they are returned to their home countries.

The United States tends to seek 'diplomatic assurances' from countries with known records of prisoner torture as a way of warding off the likelihood of abuse, but recent evidence shows such tactics are falling short, HRW said.

ROME, Sept 4, 2007 (AFP) - A group campaigning for refugee rights denounced Tuesday the continued detention of seven Tunisian fishermen, accused by the authorities here of smuggling in immigrants.

Savio Pezzotta, president of the Italian Council for Refugees (CIR) described as 'incredible' the decision of a court in Agrigente, Sicily, to turn down their lawyers' bid to have the fishermen released.

The CIR statement expressed its concern at the arrest of the fishermen, who they said had saved 44 would-be immigrants at the beginning of last month.

TUNIS, Sept 4, 2007 (AFP) - A spurt in good weather has seen the number of Tunisians trying to sneak into southern Europe climb and 26 clandestine immigrants were rescued from an overloaded vessel, a daily said Tuesday.

The rescued passengers were found in critical condition 110 km (68 miles) off the Tunisian coast on a packed fishing boat, the Echorouq newspaper said.

They were taken to a local hospital, it said, without specifying when the incident occurred.

ROME, Sept 2, 2007 (AFP) - A court in Sicily has rejected a temporary-release plea for seven Tunisian fishermen accused of human smuggling and set a new hearing for September 20, their lawyers said.

The seven Tunisians said they were only trying to save 44 would-be illegal immigrants who were crammed into a dinghy from drowning on August 8. The court made the decision to keep them in custody on Saturday.

The men risk up to 15 years in prison if convicted of engaging in trafficking illegal immigrants, the lawyers added.

ROME, Aug 22, 2007 (AFP) - Seven Tunisians who say they are fishermen who rescued 44 boat people went on trial in Sicily on Wednesday accused of involvement in human smuggling, their lawyer said.

The defendants say they rescued the would-be immigrants from an overloaded dinghy that threatened to sink in southern Italian waters on August 8.

The seven, all from Monastir, eastern Tunisia, say they brought the boat people aboard their two fishing vessels and took them to Italy's southernmost island of Lampedusa.

TUNIS, Aug 14, 2007 (AFP) - The widow of former Palestinian president Yasser Arafat has been stripped of her Tunisian citizenship and has left the country, official sources said Tuesday.

'The Tunisian nationality acquired through naturalisation by Mrs Souha Bent Daoud Ben Jabrane Ettaawil, born July 17, 1963, in Jerusalem, has been withdrawn,' said a presidential order dated August 2.

It was published in the country's official journal with no explanation, and officials in Tunis would not give any further details Tuesday.

UNITED NATIONS, July 27, 2007 (AFP) - Hedi Annabi of Tunisia, the UN assistant secretary general for peacekeeping operations, is to swap jobs with the Guatemalan head of the UN mission in Haiti, the United Nations said Friday.

Annabi, who has been in his current post since 1997, will take over from Edmond Mulet, the chief of the UN stabilization force in Haiti (MINUSTAH) effective September 1, a UN statement said.

TUNIS, July 27, 2007 (AFP) - Tunisian coastguards have rescued seven Algerian illegal immigrants adrift on a boat for 10 days, but another died as their stocks of food and water ran out, a report said Friday.

Survivors quoted in Tunisia's Echourouq daily recounted how the 22-year-old had perished on Wednesday as they tried to navigate their small vessel from the eastern Algerian port of Annaba to the southern coast of Italy.

TUNIS, July 25, 2007 (AFP) - Thirty-eight would-be immigrants to Italy were arrested Wednesday off the eastern shores of Tunisia, media here reported.

Tunisia's coastguard intercepted the migrants, all but 10 of them Tunisians, off the coast of Sfax, about 270 kilometres (170 miles) south of Tunis, as they attempted to sail to the southern Italian island of Lampedusa on a rubber dinghy, the Assabah daily reported.