Tunisia Leader Says Riyadh Unlikely to Hand Over Ben Ali

Tunisia has accepted that Saudi Arabia will probably never hand over ousted leader Zine el Abidine Ben Ali to face trial in his homeland, the new president said in an interview to be broadcast Thursday.

Former president Ben Ali has lived in exile with his wife Leila in Saudi Arabia since January 14, 2011, when he fled Tunisia amid an uprising that sparked a string of regional protests known as the Arab Spring.

"I think they will never extradite Ben Ali. We do know, we have tried with them many, many times," Moncef Marzouki, who was sworn in as Tunisian president in December, told BBC World News.

"We will probably keep putting the pressure on them to have this man here in Tunisia, but as I told you, I don't believe that they will accept because they have their own tradition, they have their own laws.

"And we do not want to have problems with them about this problem because we have also social and economic ties with Saudi Arabia and we want to keep them."