Tunis - Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali's son-in-law will buy a nearly 40-per-cent share in the country's leading private media company, the weekly magazine Jeune Afrique reported Thursday.

The purchase would give Mohammed Sakhr al-Matri, 29, a controlling share in Dar al-Sabbah, the publisher of the Arabic-language daily al-Sabbah and the French-language daily Le Temps. Dar al-Sabbah also publishes a weekly edition of al-Sabbah and the weekly magazine Sabbah al-Khir.

Tunis, Paris - On the 21st anniversary of his taking power, Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has pardoned the last members of the banned Tunisian Islamic group Ennahdha still in prison, a judicial source told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa on Wednesday.

According to the source, 21 leaders and activists of the Islamic movement, including the former head of the group, who was known as Sadok Chourou, received a "conditional release" from jail.

Several members of the group, including Chourou, were sentenced to life imprisonment in 1992 for terrorist activities.