After more then 20 years in power, Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali fled on Jan. 14 in the midst of a popular uprising, and he and his family are now facing dozens of criminal charges in their homeland.

He is slated to be tried in absentia starting next week. He is to face charges including money laundering, abuse of power and drug trafficking.

Jean-Yves Leborgne, a Paris-based lawyer representing Ben Ali, dismissed the upcoming trial as a bid by those now in power in the small North African nation to eradicate the past.

“It can be summed up as the justice of the winner,” he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Asked about images broadcast on Tunisian television showing caches of arms and large sums of cash in one of Ben Ali’s palaces, Leborgne said the weapons were “gifts.” For months, rumors have swirled that Ben Ali has suffered debilitating health problems since he fled into exile.

While Leborgne declined to answer specific questions about Ben Ali’s health, saying he is not a doctor, the attorney said a meeting with his client took place under “normal circumstances.” “He’s not in the state that he’s said to be in,” Leborgne said.

The street protests that began in Tunisia in mid-December have since spread throughout much of the Arab world, raging in neighboring Libya, as well as in Syria and Yemen.