Dealing quickly with Tunisian dictator

Five months after his flight into exile, Tunisian ex-dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali was sentenced in absentia to 35 years in prison on Monday. The West, too, should have been put on trial after all too quickly washing its hands of all blame, writes the business daily Il Sole 24 Ore: "The times when the greed of the Arab autocrats reigned supreme are over, but the reckoning still hasn't come. A trial against Ben Ali was compulsory. But the fall of rulers like Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt has also exposed shady dealings between the West and North Africa. It has uncovered embarrassing connections between Europe's political elites and the dictators. The trials could be significant for the northern shores of the Mediterranean too, which have all too quickly acquitted themselves of all guilt for the 'liaison' with those in power. The trial made depressingly short work of a compromising past, no doubt in the hope that the future won't bring too much uncertainty."

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