Mohamed Sakher El Materi owns, but has not yet moved into, a two-storey mansion in Montreal's Westmount area.John Morstad for The Globe and Mail
At a price of $2.55-million, the son-in-law of the deposed Tunisian dictator got a classic Westmount mansion, with its grey stone exterior, copper roof and stunning, unobstructed view of downtown Montreal.
But Mohamed Sakher El Materi has yet to move in to 70 Belvedere Place. And with just two storeys and 6,000 square feet, it's hard to say where he would find room for a dozen servants – let alone his pet tiger.
The house Mr. El Materi bought in 2008 has become the Canadian focal point for a revolution playing out 6,500 kilometres away in Tunisia. Protesters have sprayed the mansion's front door with ketchup, representing Tunisian blood spilled during the 23-year rule of president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali – Mr. El Materi's father-in-law. As recently as Monday, a man taped posters to the front of the Westmount home that said "Property of the people of Tunisia."
For a week, Montreal's Tunisian community has been engulfed in rumour that Mr. El Materi and his family might be headed this way. Urged on by postings on YouTube and Twitter, dozens of Tunisians showed up at the airport at one point hoping to give Mr. El Materi a rough welcome. One of the couple's children is Canadian by birth and Mr. El Materi's wife, Nesrine, is reportedly nearly full term with the couple's fourth child.
The family was never spotted at Montreal's Pierre Elliott Trudeau Airport. The last confirmed reports had Mr. El Materi in Dubai.
A billionaire in the banking and telecom industries who turned 30 last year, Mr. El Materi was described by some as Mr. Ben Ali's heir apparent. He was also a leading, ostentatious figure among dozens of family members known for fast living and a tendency to flaunt it.
Once described as "over the top" by the U.S. ambassador to Tunisia, Mr. El Materi lived in a beachside mansion, complete with pet tiger in the yard and other ostentatious touches such as Roman columns, frescoes and a lion's head through which fresh water flowed into the pool. Mr. El Materi insisted these were genuine ancient artifacts, U.S. Ambassador Robert Godec reported in a cable released by WikiLeaks.
"The tiger consumes four chickens a day," said the cable dated July, 2009. "The situation reminded the ambassador of Uday Hussein's lion cage in Baghdad."
All the while, Mr. El Materi was completing an even more garish mansion which dominated the skyline of Sidi Bou Said, a seaside town near Tunis. He was also fixing the roof and replacing the windows on the house in Westmount.
On Monday afternoon, a few minutes after the poster protester was chased away by the Westmount constabulary, a man emerged from the home wearing a suit and tie.
The man refused to identify himself, saying only that he is a lawyer representing new owners of the home. He said Mr. El Materi sold the house eight months earlier to a family with no links to Tunisia. The family is completing renovations before they move in later this year, he said.
"It's all bullshit," the man said of reports that Mr. El Materi owns the home.
However, property records show that Mr. El Materi still owns the house. A lien against Mr. El Materi for an unpaid $79,402 roof repair bill was lifted in October.
Asking not to be identified, the owner of the company which did the repairs said he's not sure whether the bill was completely paid. "But once I found out who I was dealing with, I just wanted to get paid what I could get and be gone," he said.
Les Perreaux