Since Ben Ali's fall in January after mass protests — events which sparked this year's "Arab Spring" — many of his former ministers and advisers have been held on charges ranging from killing civilians to corruption.

Ben Ali and his wife, in exile in Saudi Arabia, have been sentenced in absentia to decades in prison for corruption. He was handed another five years on Wednesday in the torture case.

In the first trial of Ben Ali's officials since the revolution, the Tunis military court sentenced former Interior Minister Abdallah Kallel and his junior minister for security, Mohammed Ali Ganzoui, to four years in prison each.

In total nine people, including Ben Ali, were found guilty. Five of them, including Ben Ali, were sentenced in absentia.

The charges related to the torture in 1991 of 17 military officers who were accused of trying to stage a coup.