LONDON – Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan has been charged with rape andremanded in custody, a judicial source said, following claims by two womenthat he assaulted them in French hotel rooms.
Ramadan, who was arrested by French police on Wednesday, was charged onFriday with rape and rape of a vulnerable person, the source said. He hasdenied the charges.
The accused is a Swiss citizen whose grandfather founded Egypt’s MuslimBrotherhood movement.
After two days of questioning by investigators, the 55-year-old OxfordUniversity professor was brought before three magistrates who have beenassigned to the case, suggesting that he is facing an extensiveinvestigation, judicial sources said.
He was remanded in custody pending a bail hearing, to be held within fourdays.
“If there are other victims in France or elsewhere, they now know that thejustice system will respond to what has happened to them,” said JonasHaddad, lawyer for feminist activist Henda Ayari, the first woman to accuseRamadan.
Women who have testified anonymously during three months of preliminaryinvestigations might now also file rape complaints, one of the sources said.
The claims against the prominent scholar, which emerged in the wake of theHarvey Weinstein scandal in the United States, have divided many Muslims,with his legions of fans, as well as his lawyers, saying he is the victimof a smear campaign.
But critics have long suggested that despite Ramadan’s moderate tone as afamiliar face on television programmes, he preaches a more radical linewhen addressing Muslims in Arabic.
Ramadan is the most high-profile figure to be held in France over thesexual assault and harassment claims that have rippled around the world asa result of the “Me Too” campaign.
The married father of four has denied the accusations from the two women.
– ‘Humiliations’ –
The first was made by Ayari, a feminist activist who previously practised aconservative strain of Islam. She had described being raped in a bookpublished in 2016, without naming her attacker.
But in October, she said she had decided to name Ramadan publicly as thealleged perpetrator as a result of the “Me Too” campaign, using the Frenchhashtag “Balance Ton Porc” (Expose your pig).
She said Ramadan raped her in his hotel room in 2012, telling Le Parisiennewspaper: “He choked me so hard that I thought I was going to die.”
She lodged a rape complaint against Ramadan on October 20.
Several days later an unidentified disabled woman, a Muslim convert, alsoaccused the academic of raping her in a hotel room in the southeastern cityof Lyon in 2009.
Vanity Fair magazine, which met the woman, said her lawsuit against Ramadandescribed “blows to the face and body, forced sodomy, rape with an objectand various humiliations, including being dragged by the hair to thebathtub and urinated on”.
During three hours of testimony in Paris on Thursday, the woman — usingthe pseudonym “Christelle” — recounted her allegations to the judge inRamadan’s presence.
She also revealed that Ramadan had a small scar on his groin that would nothave been noticed except in the case of close contact, a source said.
Rejecting her testimony, the scholar refused to sign the official summaryof the account, sources close to the case said.
“Both sides maintained their positions,” one of the sources said.
– ‘Campaign of lies’ –
During three months of investigations since the allegations emerged, policehave interviewed dozens of people close to both Ramadan and the two women,and examined email and social media exchanges between them.
In November, Oxford University said Ramadan was taking a leave of absencefrom his post as professor of contemporary Islamic studies, “by mutualagreement”.
He has also denied allegations in Swiss media of sexual misconduct againstteenage girls in the 1980s and 1990s, denouncing them as “a campaign oflies launched by my adversaries”.
Lawyers for Ramadan have accused Ayari of slander and suggested the womencolluded to try to disgrace him.
As part of his defence, he has presented investigators with Facebookconversations in which a woman identified as Ayari allegedly made explicitadvances towards him in 2014, two years after the alleged rape.
The accusations have sparked heated online debate between supporters ofRamadan, who commands a following of more than two million fans onFacebook, and his opponents.
Despite his leave of absence from Oxford, Ramadan continues to head theIslamic Institute for Ethical Training in France.
Ayari was placed under police protection in November after receiving deaththreats.-AFP