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| Habib Bourguiba Jr. is dead
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Tunis, Tunisia (PANA) -
Habib Bourguiba Jr., the only son of the first Tunisian
president Habib Bourguiba, died on Monday at the age of 82 following a long
illness, official sources in Tunis reported.
Since the beginning of his illness, he rarely appeared in public or travelled
abroad.
In a message to the Bourguiba family published by the official TAP News Agency,
President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali paid tribute to the deceased by commending
"his qualities", his background as a militant, patriotism and competence he disp
layed in the accomplishment of the missions he assumed at all professional and p
o
litical levels.
His mother was a French woman, Mathilde Clémence Lorain, the first wife of the
Tunisian
ex-president, who became a Tunisian national and converted to Islam in 1958 with
the
name of Moufida
The late Bourguiba Jr. occupied several government and diplomatic positions.
He was minister of foreign affairs, minister of justice, Tunisia's first ambassa
dor in Washington, before heading Tunisian diplomatic missions in Ottawa, Rome a
n
d Paris.
Discarded from the political scene by his father, he founded and led from 1971
to 1988 Tunisia's Economic Development Bank (BDET) which at the time played a
major role in the country's economic expansion by obtaining capital from the Gul
f States.
He was one of the first Tunisian leaders to discover computer science at its
very beginnings in 1983. Aware of the potential this technology offered, he
founded the National School of Computer Sciences and created the Research
Institute in Computer Sciences in Tunis.
He was also a member of the Monaco Club set up in 2002 by international
personalities, including Prince Albert II of Monaco, with a view to
contributing to the search for peace in the Mediterranean basin.
He was married to the daughter of Tunis-based great sporting figure Chedly Zouit
en,
former president of Espérance sportive de Tunis, the dean of Tunisian clubs.
He left behind three children Moez, a medical doctor, Mahdi, a businessman
and Meriem, an executive in an English bank.
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| Tunis - 28/12/2009 |
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