Where is zine abidine ben ali

France 24 is not responsible for the content of external websites. Ten years since an uprising toppled Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, his in-laws, who ran a mafia-like empire that once pocketed a fifth of national private sector profits, are scattered across the world.

After he was toppled and fled the country in , Ben Ali was sentenced in absentia to decades in prison for ordering killings and torture during his rule and a bloody crackdown against the revolt.

He died in September in exile in Saudi Arabia, and was quietly buried in the presence of his second wife, Leila Trabelsi, and their children.

Trabelsi, nicknamed "the hairdresser" due to her modest beginnings, was one of the most-hated figures of the Ben Ali regime. Her family exploited her position to build a vast, corrupt business network.

She and her young son live in Jeddah along with her daughter Nessrine, a divorcee who recently remarried to ostentatious Tunisian rapper K2Rhym, before press reports that she had divorced again. Trabelsi's brothers are suspected of having led her family's monopolisation of the Tunisian economy. Under Ben Ali, they gradually came to dominate the retail, real estate, communications, media and car import sectors. A fabulously wealthy businessman described in a leaked US diplomatic cable as Ben Ali's "most notorious family member", Belhassen fled by yacht to Italy on January 14, -- the same day Ben Ali took flight to Saudi Arabia.

After three years on the run, Belhassen was arrested in March in the south of France. This triggered a wave of similar uprisings across the Arab world. At least half a dozen countries in the region saw their president fall or conflicts break out in the wake of the former Tunisian leader's downfall, in what became known as the Arab Spring. Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia when he left office and was living there when he died on Thursday. His funeral will take place on Friday in Saudi Arabia, his lawyer told Reuters news agency.

Tunisia's autocratic former president brought stability but little freedom to the country. He came to power in , ousting Habib Bourguiba to become Tunisia's second-ever president. He promised reform, democracy, women's rights and education. In a diplomatic cable published by Wikileaks, a US ambassador described how the Ben Ali family was widely viewed as a "quasi-mafia". It spoke of a "nexus of corruption" which bled the country dry. And while he did bring some economic growth, no-one was really fooled by his three consecutive " His strict control of society shored up by a vast network of spies, informers and secret police kept Ben Ali in power.

But in the end anger against that obsessive control proved to be his undoing. He acted too slowly to stem the tide of that unexpected popular uprising. Tunisia's beaches were a top destination for European tourists. But unemployment among a swelling population of young people remained high, and large sections of the Tunisian interior remained poor. In the style of many Arab rulers, Ben Ali's face became a constant presence in Tunisia, with giant posters of the president visible in public spaces across the country.

Political protest was not tolerated and human rights groups accused Ben Ali's regime of unfairly arresting and mistreating political dissidents. Under the surface, there was resentment against the perceived corruption surrounding the ruling elite, some of which was detailed in US diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks at the end of Ben Ali was married twice with six children.

His second wife, Leila Trabelsi, played a prominent role in Tunisian public life and reportedly helped amass huge economic holdings for her extended family. With no obvious rivals to Ben Ali, there was speculation that he was looking to pass on power to one of his relatives.

In the final days of , a series of protests began in the centre of the country after a young graduate set himself on fire when stopped from selling fruit and vegetables without a licence.

The protests, advertised widely through social media networks, gradually spread. Ben Ali initially blamed the demonstrations on a fringe of "extremists". But he changed tack on 13 January, expressing deep regrets for the deaths of protesters, pledging to introduce media freedoms, and promising not to stand in But his offer of concessions failed to quell the unrest, and the following day, after huge crowds took to the streets of Tunis and clashed with the security forces once again, he fled the country for Saudi Arabia, where he died on 19 September