Return of embezzled billions will require teams of experts, writes EILEEN BYRNEin Tunis
IT WAS the moment that shook the north African elite to the core, set the tone for Arab revolutions to come and gave dictators the world over pause for thought. As crowds clamoured in the streets of Tunis for change, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali quietly abandoned the office he had held for more than 23 years and flew out of the country for Saudi Arabia.
As news of his departure spread, the crowd demanded restitution: of all the riches that he and his hangers-on, especially the Trabelsis – relatives of his second wife, Leila Trabelsi – had accumulated both at home and abroad. But one year on from that dramatic day, Tunisia’s new authorities are struggling to claw back assets believed to have been secreted in bank accounts from Argentina and the British-controlled Cayman Islands and Virgin Islands, to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
The Tunisian Association for Financial Transparency (ATTF), a small NGO which has estimated the Ben Ali swag at as much as €13.5 billion, is calling on the UK and Gulf governments to be more proactive in tracing stolen wealth. An initial request to Swiss banks turned up €50 million held in Ben Ali’s name. The ATTF says that is a drop in the ocean. The Tunisian central bank warns repatriating the Ben Ali wealth will take years.
“Public opinion is extremely strong against those banks and those countries that have not been fully co-operating with the investigation,” said Sami Remadi, a Swiss-trained clinical pathologist who heads the ATTF. “It’s not just a question of money, it’s a question of dignity. I have told the British authorities [Tunisians] won’t be treated as second-class citizens . . . For 23 years, our freedom was taken from us, and it was only after the revolution that we realised the scale of other things that had been taken from us, the plundering of resources.”
In the weeks after the revolution, the authorities listed 48 individuals, from Ben Ali and Leila Trabelsi down, believed to have illegally acquired assets. EU countries and Switzerland have frozen all assets held in these names, while Tunis has also issued international arrest warrants.
But Remadi believes that Ben Ali and his associates were “very well-advised” by experts, often Europe-based, on how to camouflage cash or property.
Having assets repatriated is no simple task, and members of the former first family may put up fierce legal resistance. To give Tunisia’s claims to recover any stolen funds the best chance of success, the government would have to hire an international investigative team. The expense could be prohibitive.
The Swiss authorities and the African Development Bank have offered some free technical help, but Tunisia’s new Islamist-led government, which took office in April under former political prisoner Hamadi Jebali as prime minister, faces the conundrum of how much it can justify spending on teams of international experts, each individual billing at up to €240 an hour, for an investigation that could take many months, to recover unspecified funds.
Contrary to impressions of high living and excess, the Ben Ali-Trabelsi clan ruled more like a ruthless mafia, elbowing into the commanding heights of the economy. Revelations in the press and courtrooms over the past 12 months, and in a 345-page report by a commission set up to investigate corruption, have shown how the “clans” reinvented themselves as business tycoons.
Rather than commercial acumen, they used proximity to an uxorious, ageing president with a younger wife, with their mafia-like style supplementing the state’s existing apparatus of intimidation.
The business community found it difficult to stomach the scale of corruption. Information began to circulate on cafe terraces and via the web. A revolution was born. – ( Guardianservice)