Poster of Farhat Hached in Mohamed Ali square where the UGTT’s headquarters are located

Secretary General of the Tunisian General Labor Union (UGTT) Houcine Abbassi submitted a formal request for the release of the archives on the assassination of UGTT’s founder and Tunisian independence movement leader Farhat Hached, state news agency TAP reported.

Abbassi was on an official visit in Paris where he met with French Minister of Foreign Affairs Laurent Fabius on Tuesday, January 8. Abbassi told TAP that Fabius promised to fulfill the request.

During his meeting with Fabius, Abbassi took the opportunity to call on the French government to forgive Tunisian debt and strengthen French investment in Tunisia, TAP reported.

The Ministry of Finance was not available to comment on the implications of such decision if approved.

So far, Hached’s assassination is associated with the French colonial intelligence services that operated in cooperation with locals under the name of The Red Hand.  A former intelligence officer Antoine Melero confessed to participating in Hached’s assassination in his book, “Red Hand: the Republic’s Secret Army,” published in 1997.

Melero stated in an Al Jazeera documentary that he would repeat the assassination again. Hached’s family and UGTT members considered the statement to be a proud acknowledgement of a war crime. They have filed a lawsuit against Melero in cooperation with the International Federation of Human Rights as well as the Human Rights League. No apology was issued.