Tunis  - The Tunisian court of appeals on Saturday postponed hearing the case of Sadok Chourou, former leader of a Tunisian Islamist party banned in the 1990s, his lawyer said.

Attorney Samir Ben Omar told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that the court agreed to postpone the hearing until March 23 in response to a request from Chourou's
20-member defence team, which sought more time to prepare the case. The court rejected a request to free Chourou.

Chourou is appealing a one-year prison sentence issued against him on December 13, little more than a month after he was conditionally released after serving 17 years in prison.

Chourou was the leader of Tunisia's Islamist al-Nahda, or renaissance party, when Tunisian authorities banned it in 1991. Military courts sentenced him and hundreds of other members to prison on charges of seeking to establish an Islamic state in Tunisia in the early 1990s.

In November, to mark the 21st anniversary of his coming to office, Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali ordered the release of the last remaining prisoners from the party, including Chourou.

Police rearrested the former opposition leader on December 3, after he gave interviews to journalists in which he described his imprisonment and said that he hoped the government would allow al- Nahda "to act politically, in a legal framework." On December 13, Tunis' Court of First Instance sentenced him to one year in prison on charges of "maintaining an unrecognized organization."

Al-Nahda's leaders in exile have repeatedly denied trying to topple the government by force, saying they seek an Islamic democracy through democratic means. dpa