Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to execute Islamic fundamentalists. SISMI's action did not have the consent of René Imbot, head of the French secret service, and the USA allegedly was not informed. According to Martini, the SISMI did not have an operational role in Ben Ali's rise to power, but organised a move to support his new government politically and economically, preventing Tunisia from falling into an open confrontation with fundamentalists, as happened in Algeria in the following years. Ben Ali initially promised a more democratic way of ruling the country than had prevailed under Bourguiba. One of his first acts upon taking office was
Ziad el-Doulatli Ziad el-Doulatli Ziad el-Doulatli () is a Tunisian activist affiliated with the Islamist Ennahda Movement, for which he is an executive. Ziad el-Doulati obtained his doctorate degree in pharmacology from the University of Reims in France in 1984. While there he was also head of the Union of Muslim Students. He was arrested in 1981 for his affiliation with the Islamic Action Party, now the Ennahda Movement, then immediately released. In 1987 he was sentenced to twenty years in prison, but was released after only eleven months following the ascension of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to the presidency in