Tunisia had promised to tighten hotel security before Sousse massacre
Tunisian authorities were planning to tighten security at a beach resort where 38 people were massacred by a lone gunman in June 2015.
At a meeting just one month earlier, it had been decided that police should patrol the beaches in Sousse and that an extra 400 officers would be draughted in.
An inquest into the deaths of the 30 Britons killed heard that TUI’s representative in Tunisia, Venancio Lopez, had raised the matter of security at the meeting, which was also attended by British embassy officials.
In his statement read out at the second day of the inquest, Lopez, who is MD of TUI subsidiary Tunisie Voyages – said: "We wanted to increase the security in general, but we didn’t want tourists to be scared by seeing an army of police."
He said it was agreed at the meeting in May that hotels should have metal detectors, staff should monitor CCTV and police should patrol beaches.
However, when questioned by Andrew Ritchie QC, the barrister representing families of 20 of the British victims, Lopez said he was never asked by TUI to go to the Imperial Marhaba hotel to see if in fact security had been improved.
On June 26, a 23-year-old extremist went on a rampage at the hotel, killing 38 people. Thirty of them were British guests of TUI.
The hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice is expected to last seven weeks.
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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