A Tunisian jailed for posting caricatures of the Muslim Prophet Mohammed online was freed Tuesday, his lawyer said, two weeks after securing a presidential pardon.

Jabeur Mejri, 29, "is back home," Ahmed Mselmi told Agence France Presse.

A Tunisian court ordered Tuesday the release from prison of Ridha Grira, the last defense minister under ousted president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who is suffering from cancer.

But deputy prosecutor Soufiane Sliti said Grira was still being investigated for corruption.

Italy's newly appointed Prime Minister Matteo Renzi visited Tunisia on Tuesday in his first official trip abroad, saying the Mediterranean should be the heart of Europe and not its border.

"The Mediterranean is not the border but the heart of Europe," he said at a news conference with his Tunisian counterpart Mehdi Jomaa.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was in Tunis on Tuesday for a visit to boost commercial ties, as tensions escalated between Moscow and the West over the crisis in Ukraine.

"We reaffirm our solidarity with the Tunisian people, our support for fundamental changes in Tunisia. We are ready to support this process," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement on the visit which did not mention the standoff over Ukraine.

Tunisian Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa warned Monday that the country's economic woes could become "catastrophic," saying that people will have to make sacrifices.

Tunisia's economic recovery since its 2011 "Arab Spring" revolution has been hampered by political instability, social unrest and Islamist violence.

A Tunisian man was arrested Sunday for trying to cross into Syria's Qalamoun from the Bekaa region, Lebanon's National News Agency reported.

“The Lebanese Army arrested Tunisian national Bassem bin Mohammed al-Silti while he was en route from Jib Janine to Arsal on his way to Qalamoun in Syria,” NNA said.

Around 400 Tunisian jihadists have returned from fighting in the Syrian war, the interior minister said, sparking fears that the battle-hardened militants could fuel Islamist violence back home.

Since the 2011 revolution, Tunisia has been rocked by sporadic violence linked to Muslim extremists who were suppressed under the regime of ousted strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

A rocket-propelled grenade exploded Saturday near the Tunisian consulate in the restive eastern Libyan city of Benghazi without causing any casualties or damage.

An Agence France Presse photographer on the scene said the explosion left a crater in the ground in front of the diplomatic mission, and caused minor damage to its outer wall.

Tunisian searchers have found and handed over to Tripoli the black boxes from a Libyan military plane that crashed Friday, killing 11 including a top former jihadist, the government said.

"The transport ministry announces that the two black boxes from the Libyan military aircraft that crashed yesterday in the Grombalia region have been found," a statement on Saturday said.

A Libyan air force medical plane crashed south of Tunis early on Friday, killing all 11 people on board, Tunisian officials said.

The aircraft crashed in a field on the edge of the village of Nianou, around 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the capital, but managed to avoid any houses, an AFP journalist reported.