Hapless Tunisian businessman woefully victimized under Ben Ali's repressive rule relates his mishaps to Echorouk (Part 3)

Ghazi Melouli, a Tunisian businessman who owned several firms in Tunisia was an associate in part of his business ventures with the brother of the ousted President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. But after the unexpected demise of Moncef Ben Ali, his former business partner, Ghazi Melouli was mercilessly stripped of all his belongings and sent to prison by deposed President Ben Ali at the prodding of his wife Leila Trabelsi and her family.

• This hapless Tunisian businessman who now lives in exile in Paris also narrowly escaped an assassination attempt ordered by the Ben Ali regime in Tripoli two years ago. He was met this week in Paris by Echorouk’s correspondent Anouar Malek to whom he related his baffling story in an exclusive interview with Echorouk.
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• Echorouk  : You were the target of an assassination attempt in your home while staying in Libya, how did this happen?
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• Ghazi Melouli : After a stay of one year and a few months in Libya precisely in November 2009, I was contacted by someone namely Lotfi El Hadi who had worked with me for 5 years in Tunisia as well as in Libya in one of my firms dealing with the agro-food business. He then urged me to take him again as an employee in my firm in Libya as he had found no job in Tunisia itself.
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•  So, I agreed to meet with him with no problem and on the very day of the historic world cup qualifier held in Khartoum between the national squads of Algeria and Egypt, he asked me to allow him to come to my house located on the seaboard of Tripoli so that we could watch the thrilling match on TV together in my lounge.
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• But as I was keenly watching the decisive football match, he unexpectedly sit up and went behind me and savagely stabbed me twice with a knife on my left side, then he tried to strangle me with a rope he had in his pocket.
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•  Despite the awful pain I felt on account of the injury, I struggled hard with him to the hilt before I fell down on the floor. Seeing me lying down gasping, he hurriedly fled from the exit door falsely thinking that I was about to pass away.
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• Shortly afterwards, one my Libyan neighbours heard my cries for help and swiftly phoned the health service squad who rushed me to a nearby hospital for emergency care.
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• I stayed 5 days in a coma and then I came around I spent 15 days in the intensive care unit and my slow but steady recovery flabbergasted everyone there including the surgeons on duty.

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• Echorouk : After this appalling mishap, you traveled to Paris, didn’t you?
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• Ghazi Melouli : Absolutely, I then decided to fly to Paris for further medical treatment. I underwent three surgical operations in a Paris hospital which were hopefully crowned with success leading to my full recovery.
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• Echorouk : Did the relevant authorities in Libya open an investigation into the attempted assassination against you?
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• Ghazi Melouli : Well, members of the Libyan security services came to see me after I went out of my coma in hospital and asked a number of questions about what happened but until now my legal complaint has remained a dead letter with no tangible breakthrough unfortunately.
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• Echorouk : Did you lodge a formal complaint while in the French capital Paris?
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• Ghazi Melouli : Obviously, I lodged a formal complaint with the Tunisian embassy in Paris through my lawyers but such a complaint was utterly turned down by the Tunisian diplomatic representation in the French capital.
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• I then decided to refer my case to a Tunis – based lawyer namely Radia Nassraoui to whom I dispatched by registered mail all the relevant documents containing all the ins and outs of the attempted assassination hatched against me with the relevant health certificates but oddly enough these documents were never received by this lawyer because they were wittingly seized on the way by the henchmen of the despotic Ben Ali regime.
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• The latter obviously wanted to “choke off” the whole affair lest it could snowball and go out of control by exposing the real culprits within the inner circle of the Ben Alis and the Trabelsis  whose only aim was to preserve their vested interests at all costs and to maintain their iron-fist rule across Tunisia.
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• Echorouk : And now after the downfall of the heinous Ben Ali regime, what are your present claims?
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• Ghazi Melouli : Well, first and foremost, I request from the new Tunisian authorities the opening of an exhaustive inquiry into the assassination attempt against me. I want justice to be rendered against those allied to the ousted Ben Ali regime including my aggressor Lotfi El Hadi who nearly took my life in my house two years ago in Tripoli at the behest of the Ben Ali regime.
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•  I want a sovereign justice in Tunisia to make them pay for the untold pain and suffering they meted out to me for so many years only because I didn’t bow like many other honest Tunisians to their ruthless and hegemonic policy-line.
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