TARIQ RAMADAN. Swiss Islamologist Tariq Ramadan is to stand trial in Paris for allegedly raping four women between 2009 and 2016.
[Updated July 7, 2023 at 5:31 p.m.] Tariq Ramadan back in court. Two Parisian investigating judges ordered this Friday, July 7, a trial before the Paris departmental criminal court for the Swiss preacher, accused of raping four women. Tariq Ramadan will be tried for rapes committed between 2009 and 2016. The Swiss Islamologist has always denied the charges against him and has launched several appeals against this legal procedure which has lasted for seven years. He was indicted in September 2019 for the rape of four women. The complainants all claimed to have received digital messages followed by a physical encounter before insults, threats and sexual abuse emerged.
The first woman to file a complaint claims to have met Tariq Ramadan in a Paris hotel to give her religious advice on the sidelines of a congress of the Union of Islamic Organizations of France. She told investigators that the Islamologist slapped her, strangled her. “I really thought I was going to die there,” she testified.
This court decision was particularly awaited since it is not the first rape case in which Tariq Ramadan is accused. He was cleared by the Geneva court on May 24. This controversial figure of Islam had been acquitted in the rape trial of which he was the subject in Switzerland, 15 years after alleged facts, denounced only in 2018 by the complainant. However, the case is not completely over since the accuser’s lawyer has announced that she will appeal the decision.
The purpose of the trial organized in Geneva was to establish the guilt or innocence of Tariq Ramadan in a case of “rape” and “sexual coercion”, which allegedly occurred on the night of October 28, 2008 at the Mon Repos hotel. from Geneva. That evening, he allegedly raped, hit and insulted a woman, who was given the name “Brigitte” during the trial. However, it was not until 2018 that she filed a complaint. During the trial which was held between May 15 and 17, 2023, Tariq Ramadan claimed his innocence, claiming to have been the victim of a conspiracy, the complainant’s account approaching the facts denounced by four other women in France.
During the debates, the sexagenarian was as comfortable in his expression as the feverish Swiss woman when speaking. Did that tip the scales? Many observers were surprised during the trial by the freedom of tone granted to Tariq Ramadan. The two admitted to spending the night together. And justice ruled in favor of the Islamologist on the course of the evening, despite the three years in prison, including 18 months firm, required against him by the prosecutor.
