In exclusive, never heard before recordings believed to be of former Tunisian president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, BBC News Arabic reveals the anxious telephone calls that helped seal the fate of his 23 year dictatorship and spark a wave of revolutions across the Middle East.

The recordings, which are strongly disputed by some, appear to show that, as protests rocked his feared police state, the president’s closest aides urged him to stay away from the country. Show less