A highly controversial figure in European Islam, Tariq Ramadan has seen his status change from an Islamologist to that of an alleged abuser since the complaints of two women in 2017, Henda Ayari, an ex-Salafist turned secular activist, and another woman nicknamed ” Christelle”, denouncing respectively a rape in 2012 in Paris and in 2009 in Lyon. This July 12, 2022, the Paris prosecutor’s office requested a trial at the Assizes for these suspicions, but also two other women. Defense argument? After initially denying extramarital sex, the Islamologist was compelled by digital evidence to recognize “dominance relationships“, rough but “agreed”. It is the investigating judges in charge of the investigation who will decide on a trial or not.
In February 2018, Tariq Ramadan was indicted and then imprisoned for ten months. In February and then October 2020, he was indicted for raping three other women. Two had been identified by the police in photos and messages found on his computer, and the third, ex-escort girl Mounia Rabbouj, had accused him in March 2018 of nine rapes between 2013 and 2014. In a document from 90 pages signed Tuesday, of which AFP became aware, two magistrates of the public prosecutor’s office request the referral to the assizes of the 59-year-old Islamologist for “rapes” on Henda Ayari, Mounia Rabbouj and one of the women identified in the photo, as well as for ” rape of a vulnerable person” on “Christelle”.
For parquet, it is clear that “despite repeated denials” by Tariq Ramadan, “it follows from the statements of all the complainants that consenting to a sexual relationship does not mean consenting to be mistreated, struck, sodomized to the point of being reduced to an object devoid of any consent“. By specifying that the fact of consenting to a relationship as the complainants were able to do is not “a blank check which authorizes once and for all the partner to dictate his law”.
Tariq Ramadan’s reaction
On his Twitter account, the accused notified that one of his lawyers would speak on television. Maître Ouadie Elhamamouchi, Tariq Ramadan’s lawyer, therefore spoke on BFMTV the very evening of the announcement against Maxime Switek: “Tariq Ramadan is not surprised. The prosecution has always been extremely oriented in this case. (…) We absolutely do not have the same view of the facts. Dozens of inventions and lies. The plaintiff ‘Christelle’ was supposed to be dying in the hotel room, except that expertise proved that she had been able to attend the conference afterwards.“He adds that she sent him a text message after the facts denounced:”I miss your skin.“Furthermore, he recalls that a complainant withdrew her complaint and that the Public Prosecutor’s Office carried out expert opinions without having heard the accused. According to his counsel, the criminal brigade proved that the complainants had lied and finally, he underlines the collusion between the women who knew each other before the facts denounced.
The prosecution, for its part, justified its requisitions by a notion that punctuated this file: the victims “were all under the influence“by Tariq Ramadan”in view of the admiration or even the veneration that (he) exercised on them“. The defendant’s lawyers reject this “grip” and believe that the complaints are the fruit of “sentimental or sexual disappointments“even of a political conspiracy, denounced by their client.
No conspiracy, retorted the public prosecutor, especially since during the investigation of other potential victims “were identified but did not wish to file a complaint, some having even preferred to compromise“. The prosecution mentioned “rather a common awareness that has allowed some to have the courage to denounce the facts of which they have been victims“.
The legal fate of Tariq Ramadan is now in the hands of the investigating judges. He remains presumed innocent of the charges against him until the final judgment of this case.