Zine El Abidine Ben Ali were sentenced to 35 years in prison after being found guilty of theft and unlawful possession of cash and jewelry. The verdict also included a penalty of 91 million Tunisian dinars (approximately €50 million) that Ben Ali was required to pay. This verdict was dismissed as a "charade" by some Tunisians dissatisfied with the trial and as a "joke" by Ben Ali's lawyer. The sentences were to take immediate effect, although Ben Ali and his wife were living in Saudi Arabia and the Saudi government ignored Tunisia's requests to extradite them. In November 2016, Ben Ali made a statement via
Zine El Abidine Ben Ali candidates were required to get endorsements from 30 political figures. Given the RCD's near-absolute dominance of the political scene, prospective opposition candidates discovered they couldn't get their nomination papers signed. The subsequent years saw the return of several Bourguiba-era restrictions. For many years, the press had been expected to practice self-censorship, but this increasingly gave way to official censorship. Amendments to the press code allowed the Interior Ministry to review all newspaper and magazine articles before publication. In 1992, the president's older brother Habib Ben Ali was tried in absentia in France for laundering the proceeds of drug trafficking, in