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Since the overthrow of the late former Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s regime, who fled following popular protests in 2011, his family members have dispersed to several countries and lived off the wealth they had accumulated. over the years, away from the spotlight.
The family controlled 21% of the country’s economy, according to a World Bank report released in 2014. Some of them died while others were being sued, yet not getting any compensation for the damage they had. inflicted on large economic sectors and families victims of their arrogance.
Ben Ali and his relatives
Ben Ali has been convicted in a number of cases in absentia, and he died in September 2019 in Saudi Arabia, where he was buried away from the media.
His wife, Leila Ben Ali (64), whom the majority of Tunisians call “the barber”, lives in Jeddah with her only son Muhammad and daughter Nisreen. She is one of the faces most hated by Tunisians in the Ben Ali regime and is prosecuted in a number of cases.
Nisreen married famous rapper Kadurim who appeared in photos with the family, then local press reported their divorce.
The “Trabelsi” family
Leila’s two brothers, Imad and Belhassen Al-Trabelsi, are accused of having accumulated great wealth by seizing national property in Tunisia, which allowed the “Trabelsia” family to create an empire which acquires public real estate , distribution channels, telecommunications companies, media and car sales.
Belhassen, 58, is considered the family’s “godfather” and the richest businessman. He escaped on a yacht bound for Italy on January 14, then moved to Canada, where he lived in an apartment in a building in Montreal until 2016, when authorities refused to allow him grant asylum, and he then left the country.
Belhassen submitted a request for reconciliation to the Truth and Dignity Commission, which was set up to examine the case for transitional justice in Tunisia (1955-2013), in exchange for the return of a sum of money estimated at one billion of dinars (approximately $ 425 million), but reconciliation did not take place.
He was arrested by French authorities in March 2019 in the south of France, after three years of leaking a money laundering case. French justice is currently examining a request presented by the Tunisian authorities to return Belhasen, who faces a 33-year prison sentence in absentia in his country in suspicious money cases.
The court is supposed to render its decision on January 27.
As for Imad Trabelsi (46 years old), the most famous in Tunisian circles, he has been imprisoned in Tunisia since 2011. He was arrested at the airport on the day of Ben Ali’s fall on January 14, 2011, and he was in prison. road with several members of his family to France. He is the only prominent figure in the Ben Ali family to have been tried and sentenced to terms of up to 100 years in prison.
Imad presented a recorded testimony during hearings organized by the Truth and Dignity Commission on May 22, 2017. For his part, he explained the image of corruption in power and in the economy with the complicity of customs officials, personalities and ministers.
Imad has publicly apologized to the Tunisians, and the commission has reached a reconciliation agreement with him, but it has yet to be resolved.
Leila also has two other brothers who were not very well known, they are Moncef Trabelsi, who died in prison of brain cancer in 2013 at the age of 63, and Mourad al-Trabelsi, who suffered many illnesses before he died in April 2020, as a result of his neglect in prison. According to the family.
Step-parents
Sakhr El-Materi (39 years old): He is free from Nasreen Bin Ali and is known as the “favorite brother-in-law” of Ben Ali and his wife. He fled to Qatar in 2011, then to Seychelles in late 2012.
The organization “I Watch”, which specializes in monitoring corruption cases in Tunisia, suggests that he acquired Seychellois nationality.
El-Materi began negotiations in 2017 with the Truth and Dignity Commission to try to reach a reconciliation agreement that would guarantee him a safe return to Tunisia in exchange for the transfer of 500 million dinars in compensation to the state.
The French authorities arrested his father, Moncef El Materi, in June 2011, and the latter was subject to judicial review according to an international habeas corpus issued by the Tunisian justice in 2011. The French justice refused to extradite to Tunisia.
Marwan Al-Mabrouk: Serene, daughter of Ben Ali from his first marriage, is a free man, and a businessman who rarely speaks to the media.
Along with his brothers, he runs the largest shopping malls in the country which have a group of companies selling food, cars and banks. The judiciary has frozen some of its assets since 2011.
In 2019, he managed to recover some of them, including a stake in the French telecommunications company Orange, after the European Union lifted the sanctions against him, and after that, Orange recovered that share.
Salim Chiboub (61 years old): He is the closest to the people of the Ben Ali regime, because he ran the biggest sports club in the country, “Tunisian Sports Espérance”, and was married to Dorsaf, the daughter of Ben Ali from his first wedding.
He returned to Tunisia in 2014 from the United Arab Emirates, for the sake of reconciliation, and he is arrested today.
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