Once a media darling on French television, the charismatic Tariq Ramadan was long presented as a brilliant mind—holder of a PhD on Islamic reformism—who captivated admirers of Islam and disarmed critics with clear explanations, erudition and formidable rhetorical skills. That image collapsed abruptly when allegations of rape and sexual violence began to surface. According to testimonies and prosecution files, a monster—a sexual predator—was allegedly hiding behind the polished persona of the Swiss Islamic scholar. Ramadan vehemently denies raping three women in France between 2009 and 2016, but his trial is nonetheless set to open this Monday, 2 March, before the Paris Departmental Criminal Court.
The 63-year-old preacher—already convicted on appeal in his home country (three years in prison, including one year to be served) for the rape of another woman—will stand trial until 27 March before a bench composed exclusively of professional judges. The grandson of Hassan el-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, is facing a potentially severe sentence of up to 20 years’ criminal imprisonment.
At the opening of proceedings, one of the complainants, Christelle (a pseudonym), is expected to request a closed hearing “to protect her identity and avoid reliving the relentless pressure, threats and harassment she endured during the judicial investigation—given that the accused did not hesitate, on multiple occasions, to disclose and publicly expose her identity,” her lawyers, Laura Ben Kemoun and Laure Heinich, said.
According to the victim’s defence committee, the trial—held “after more than eight particularly difficult years of proceedings and more than sixteen years after the facts”—represents “a long-awaited form of culmination” and “an essential moment” for their client. “This trial is neither a conspiracy nor a political battle, but the sadly ordinary story of the rape of three women under coercive influence,” said Sarah Mauger-Poliak, lawyer for Henda Ayari, ahead of the opening of the hearings.
After a long procedural journey, the Paris Court of Appeal ordered in June 2024 that the Swiss academic stand trial over the alleged crimes: an aggravated rape involving violence and an alleged vulnerable victim, Christelle, in Lyon in October 2009; a second alleged rape said to have occurred in Paris in 2012 involving Henda Ayari, a former Salafist who later became a secular activist—whose complaint filed in October 2017 broke open the “Ramadan system”; and a third alleged rape involving another woman in 2016.
Initially, investigating judges had also committed Ramadan to trial over alleged rapes involving a fourth woman, Mounia Rabbouj. However, the defendant appealed, and the Court of Appeal ultimately dropped that part of the case concerning the presumed victim. The court also found that the notion of “coercive control” was not materially substantiated, holding that this offence—understood as a scheme leading to a necessarily total deprivation of free will—could not be established.
The Court of Appeal did, however, retain “the violence that is primarily emphasised in the different accounts” given by the complainants. All described sexual encounters allegedly marked by physical force, restraint and intimidation, as recorded by the investigating judges in their committal order.
Tariq Ramadan sought by all means to ensure the trial would never take place. He first denied any intimate relationship with the women, then revised his account in mid-2018 by acknowledging extramarital affairs, framed under the sign of “domination”—brutal, but “consensual,” he claimed. The case shifted at that point. Even so, the preacher continued a strategy of procedural offensives, seeking additional investigations and postponements in order to buy time to prove his innocence.
“The obstinacy of the judicial authority in maintaining the hearing on the initially scheduled dates does not seem to allow for a fair trial,” argued his team of lawyers—Jean-Marie Burguburu, Sarah May Vogelhut, Nabila Asmane and Ouadie Elhamamouchi. They say their client has filed “no fewer than five applications over the past year to submit essential new evidence,” but has faced the “silence” of the president of the criminal court.
His lawyers have also argued that Tariq Ramadan suffers from multiple sclerosis and was “not in a condition to appear without endangering his health”.
It should be recalled that after his appeal conviction in Switzerland for a rape alleged to have occurred on the night of 28 to 29 October 2008 in a hotel in Geneva, he filed an application with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and requested a review of his trial. The Geneva courts are still examining his request.
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