to 40 per cent of the Tunisian economy estimated to have fallen under the sway of Mr Ben Ali's family and that of his wife, Leila Trabelsi, whom he married in 1992.
Hatred of the Ben Ali regime was fuelled by tales of their unbridled greed and gargantuan wealth. In US embassy cables released by Wiki-Leaks, the American ambassador expressed shock at how Mr Ben Ali's extended family was a "quasi-mafia" and the "nexus of Tunisian corruption".
The ambassador gives an account of having dinner at the villa of one of the Ben Ali's daughters, Nesrine and her husband, Sakhr el-Meteri, where frozen yogurt was flown in from St Tropez, and four chickens a day were fed to a pet tiger. Not only did the Ben Ali and Trabelsi families take over profitable businesses, but they made it impossible for anybody else to do business without cutting them in for a share. One entrepreneur who went to see Mr Ben Ali with his plan to start a university was told by him "OK, but its 50:50" according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. The entrepreneur dropped his proposal.
One of the President's brothers-in-law, Belhassen Trabelsi, suggested to a car importer, who intended to import Citroën cars, that he join him in a partnership. When the importer turned him down he was promptly subjected to 17 tax inspections and his cars were stopped at customs for having 10 seats. "There is no such thing as a 10-seat car," the importer told the newspaper.
Mr Ben Ali, who came to power in a coup in 1987, ran a tightly controlled police state similar to that in other parts of the Arab world. The ruling family cherry-picked the most profitable enterprises and bought up privatised businesses at rock-bottom prices. Mr Trabelsi's business interests included the Bank of Tunisia, Karthago Airlines and radio and television companies.
Mr Ben Ali, born in 1936, had made his career in the Tunisian military and was a graduate of American and French military training schools. In Tunisia he was head of national security from 1977 and was well placed to take over from his ageing predecessor President Habib Bourguiba He always revelled in the costly trappings of office and ignored the way in which the pervasive corruption and creeping economic domination of the ruling families fuelled furious resentment among all classes of Tunisians. This exploded last December after a 26-year-old street vendor burnt himself to death when his vegetable cart was confiscated by the police because he did not have the required licence. Mr Ali is likely to face a further trial by military tribunal, the date for which has not been set, at which he will be charged with ordering the police to open fire on protesters, hundreds of whom were killed. Tunisia was typical of the era of Arab police states which developed from the 1970s and were very similar, regardless of whether or not they were republics or monarchies. Absolute power was held through multi-layered security agencies, tight censorship and control of information and communications, and state domination of all independent organisations such as trade unions and political parties. The wave of privatisations of public property became plundering expeditions for predatory ruling families.
In Tunisia popular loathing for Leila Trabelsi, a former hairdresser, was particularly acute. No part of the economy was immune from seizure or interference by the ruling families. They took over banks, insurance companies, tourist venture, property, distribution and agencies of big foreign firms. As Mr Ben Ali was being toppled, the cars and villas of his relatives and in-laws were ransacked by angry crowds. It is not known how much of their assets had been moved abroad.
Such was the grip of "The Family" on the economy that government officials say they are moving cautiously in dealing with their many businesses and, instead of closing them down, the courts have appointed managers.
Patrick Cockburn
Tuesday, 9 July 2011
A DICTATOR’S TRIAL
How do you defend a dictator who's been around for years and years and years when he's accused of - well, being a dictator for years and years and years? When I mention the "trials" of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, the former Tunisian autocrat's lawyer throws his hands in the air, an expression of cynicism and laughter on his face. "These weren't judgements, they weren't even real cases - they were a joke," Akram Azoury says of the Tunis courts which last month, after just one-and-a-half hours of deliberations, sentenced Ben Ali and his wife Leila Traboulsi to 35 years' imprisonment and the equivalent of £48m in fines, and then, this week, to another 15-and-a-half years. "The speed of the first trial - the length of time between the opening of the trial and the judgement - was closer to a Formula One race than to a classical judicial procedure."
Oddly, Ben Ali's first farcical trial - with no witnesses and no lawyers chosen by the defendant - enraged both his lawyer and the ex-dictator's most vehement opponents. They wanted charges of high treason and crowds of tortured ex-prisoners to testify to the brutality of the Ben Ali regime. Azoury, a Lebanese Christian who acted for Ben Ali with his French colleague Jean-Yves Le Borgne and who runs a family legal practice in Beirut - his two daughters are also lawyers - wanted a fair trial. "No lawyers were invited to the court," Azoury says with quiet fury. "I had power of attorney, certified by the Tunisian embassy in Beirut. I applied for a visa - but I was not granted a visa. I applied to the Tunisian Bar for authorisation - and I was not granted authorisation." In the end, the Tunisian Bar appointed two lawyers of its own to "defend" Ben Ali.
"This trial, it violates each and every criteria of the 1966 Fair Trial pact that preceded the pact of civil rights of the European Union," Azoury says.
"After 1966, the Human Rights Committee was set up in Geneva. This court hearing in Tunis was not eligible to qualify as a trial - so the verdict is not a verdict. No European country can extradite Ben Ali to Tunisia based on this verdict. Should he be free in France, England, Germany, especially if he was in England and the Tunisians wanted to extradite him, no court in England would accept to do this." I forbear to suggest that no immigration officer in England - let alone France - would allow Ben Ali or his wife to enter the country, although Mr Azoury does believe his client should leave Saudi Arabia.
"Ben Ali described the judgements as 'the wording of the justice of the victors'. Don't forget that the mere fact that President…" - and here I note Azoury can still call his client 'President' - "…Ben Ali hired me as his lawyer is a precedent in this part of the world. It means he wants to play by the rules. He doesn't care about a political trial. He governed Tunisia for 25 years and it's the right of the Tunisian people to judge him. In his opinion, these accusations are not made innocently. If you look at the substance of these accusations, they are shameful. They want to kill him morally. Don't forget that all this stuff in the second trial - the drugs and weapons - were 'found' in his official residence two or three months after Ben Ali left. After seven months now, you might 'find' nuclear weapons in his residence!" The second "trial" of Ben Ali this week - for possession of drugs and illegal weapons - also added another fine of £50,000. Even his Tribunal Bar-appointed lawyers objected that the hearing was unfair. "The only purpose," Azoury says, "was to brand President Ben Ali as a drugs dealer and weapons dealer before the Tunisian elections."
But why did the old dictator hire a Lebanese lawyer to act for him? Azoury has an interesting legal pedigree. In 2000, he defended Lebanese petroleum minister Barsoumian and secured his acquittal before the courts after 11 months of imprisonment; in 2003, he prosecuted board members of the Medina Bank; in 2005, he represented General Jamil Sayed of the Lebanese General Security when he was accused by the UN tribunal of possible involvement in the assassination of ex-prime minister Rafiq Hariri. After four years of false imprisonment, Sayed was released by the UN who admitted it had no evidence against him.
"A lawyer can only perform his job in a court of law," Azoury says. "Law and politics cannot be present at the same time. My job was to take the politics out of the courtroom. Because if they wanted a political judgement in Tunis, it has already been issued and executed. The guy (Ben Ali) is not going to Tunisia any more. I respect this. But if the Tunisian authorities want to start a real judicial process, they should abide by the principles of a fair trial."
But Akram Azoury is no patsy. "It is an excellent thing to judge heads of state," he says suddenly.
"It will help to implement a culture of justice - because the responsibility of the new regime in Tunisia is also to implement due process of law. If these rulers were that bad, there should be no difficulty in convicting them after a fair trial." Azoury lived in Tunis