Ali Laarayedh under President Habib Bourguiba, he was sentenced to fifteen years in prison under President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, during which time he suffered torture. He was, among other techniques, threatened with HIV transfusion. His wife, Wided Lagha, was sexually abused and videotaped by officials from the Ministry of Interior. On 20 December 2011, after President Ben Ali was deposed, he joined the Jebali Cabinet as Minister of the Interior. He vowed to support peace in Tunisia, rejecting religious extremism, tribalism or regionalism. On 22 February 2013, Laarayedh was appointed as Prime Minister after Hamadi Jebali resigned from office. Laarayedh
Zine El Abidine Ben Ali a military court on April 2013 for violent repression of protests in Sfax. Ben Ali was born in 1936 to moderate-income parents as the fourth of eleven children in the family. His father, Selma Hassen, worked as a guard at the port city of Sousse. He joined the local resistance against French colonial forces and was imprisoned. His expulsion from secondary school was the reason why he never completed his secondary education. He studied at the Sousse Technical Institute but failed to earn a professional certificate and joined the newly formed Tunisian Army in 1958. Nevertheless, after being chosen as