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
Qatar–Saudi Arabia diplomatic conflict Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who fled to Saudi Arabia. Widespread Al Jazeera coverage of the Bahraini uprising of 2011 fueled Saudi suspicions the Qatari government sought to overthrow the Saudi government via soft power. The Saudis then supported a largely successful counterrevolution to the Arab Spring to preserve the monarchy of Bahrain, overthrow the Egyptian democratically-elected president Mohammad Morsi and stymie international support for the post-Gadaffi government in Libya. Since the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état by Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, there has been a consistent pattern of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt opposing the designs of