Tunis: The investigating judge at the Tunis Court of First Instance issued a detention warrant for lawyer Mehdi Zagrouba on Wednesday evening and ordered a medical ambulance to transfer him to the hospital for treatment after he could no longer be heard, according to his lawyer Boubaker Ben Thabet. Ben Thabet told TAP on the phone that the Public Prosecutor's Office had decided to launch three investigations against his client, two of which concern the assault on police officers at the premises of the Tunis Court of First Instance. The third pertains to the assault on a police officer during a raid by the police on the Lawyers' House last Monday evening to arrest him. 'The investigating judge observed Mehdi Zagrouba's exhausted state as a result of systematic torture," Thabet said, noting that "the investigating judge suspended his client's interrogation in order to present him to the forensic doctor, as required by the legal provisions in cases of detention.' He added that 'Mehdi Zagrouba could not be pre sented to the forensic doctor for security reasons,' saying 'his client fainted and could no longer be heard and that was noted by the investigating judge, who issued a detention order against him pending further proceedings." Ben Thabet called on the authorities to open an investigation into 'the assaults that almost took his life,' and called on the Bar Association to denounce these practices. He further stated that the National Authority for the Prevention of Torture (INPT) and the Tunisian League for the Defence of Human Rights (LTDH) were informed on Tuesday about the condition of lawyer Mehdi Zagrouba, noting that the authority has provided a doctor to visit him. Lawyer Mehdi Zagrouba was arrested on Monday evening by a number of security officers while he was at the Lawyer's House in Tunis. "Permission was granted to detain him in accordance with Article 46 of the Decree organising the legal profession,' said spokesperson for the Tunis Court of First Instance Mohamed Zitouna. The decree allows the detention of a lawyer in flagrante delicto. Zitouna explained that "the lawyer in question violently assaulted police officers inside the premises of the Tunis Court of First Instance, who were performing their duties within the framework of the law, in addition to attempting to forcibly remove them from the court to obstruct the course of justice." Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse