Lawyer reveals Ben Ali escape

Ousted Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's Lebanese attorney Akram Azouzi confirmed that his client had never asked former Defence Minister Reda Qarira to execute counter-terrorism officers. The statement was in response to what French website Mediapart published recently with the title “14 January 2011… the day Ben Ali fell”, which was based on the results of the criminal investigation of “Plotting against state security”, where Ali Assereity (Ben Ali's security director) accused Qarira of  being willing to terminate him for any price with Ben Ali’s approval, after receiving news that Asserteity planned a coup. An official statement from Azouzi’s office on Friday said that Ben Ali had never asked Qarira to kill officers of the counter-terrorism team, which arrested a number of members of his family and friends before they fled abroad. Ben Ali stressed “This is evidenced in all telephone records between Ben Ali and the Ministers of Defence and Interior and Generals Ali Assereity and Rachid Ammar… using phone records could reveal the truth of what happened and refute what was not published in Mediapart.” He added “Incidents stated in the article about the circumstances of the departure of Ben Ali are lacking on one side, and inaccurate on the other. Ben Ali did not escape from Tunisia, but he was a victim of a complex coup in the morning of 14 January 2011.” Azouzi said Ali Asserity came to the presidential office to inform him that the situation in the capital ws serious and out of control, that he should deport his family, and that both the palaces of Carthage and Sidi Bou Said were besieged by dissidents from the security forces. He even showed him two boats – by pointing at them – scouring the sea between  Carthage and his residence in Sidi Bou Said, in addition to a helicopter. Azouzi continued: “Assereity confirmed to Ben Ali the information stating that a security guard was assigned to kill him, and that such info was confirmed by the intelligence of a neighbouring country, without mentioning the name of neither the guard nor the country. He urged him and begged him to let his wife and family leave the country immediately, explaining that the accompanying guards are ready and so was the plan of the trip, which was to head to Tripoli then Jeddah.” In response to Assereiti’s insistence and the seriousness of the situation, Ben Ali agreed that his family leave for Jeddah. They left the Carthage palace at 5pm in the direction of the airport, where the presidential aircraft was ready to depart. At the airport, Assereity urged that Ben Ali accompany his family to Jeddah and return later. Eventually, he agreed to accompany his family granted the plane waited for him to return alone the same evening. However, the plane returned without him on January 15, and the rest of the events are known as “Coup and using Chapter 57 of the Constitution”, in his own words.