The illustrious Swiss philosopher Tariq Ramadan is on trial in Switzerland for allegedly engaging in non-consensual hanky-panky with a woman some years ago.

Long-time readers will remember the “French” “comedian” Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, more commonly known simply as Dieudonné. It now appears that the atmosphere of Mr. Ramadan’s trial will be made even more circus-like by the expected testimony of Mr. Dieudonné on behalf of the defense.

Many thanks to Gary Fouse for translating this article from Le Matin:

Dieudonné expected at rape trial of Tariq Ramadan in Geneva

The defense of the Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan, who has been on trial since Monday for rape — which he denies — has called the controversial humorist Dieudonné to come and testify Tuesday.

The plaintiff, present in the courtroom during all the arguments on Monday, may also speak for the first time on Tuesday before the criminal tribunal, where this case has attracted the French press and crowds.

A convert to Islam, the Swiss plaintiff, who chose the assumed name of “Brigitte” to protect herself from threats, was 40 years old at the time of the alleged facts. She claims that the Islamic scholar subjected her to brutal sexual acts accompanied by blows and insults on the night of October 28, 2008, in a hotel room in Geneva. She filed a complaint in 2018.

The defense wanted to call Dieudonné, a relative of the plaintiff, because his name appeared in an anonymous letter received by the tribunal. He reportedly was confided in by “Brigitte” concerning a consensual relationship with Tariq Ramadan. “He will bring his contribution to the manifestation of the truth,” Dieudonné’s lawyer Emmanuel Ludot told Agence France Presse.

“To bring in Dieudonné as a witness based on an anonymous letter that surfaced fifteen days before this hearing in a case that has been going on for five years, which letter is neither dated nor signed, and it is not known who wrote it, is a completely pathetic process that says a lot about the fact that Ramadan is out of arguments,” the plaintiff’s attorney, François Zimeray, told reporters.

During the hearing, “Brigitte” asked to be separated from Tariq Ramadan by a screen so as not to see him during a trial that for her “is a test and not therapy,” according to Attorney Zimeray. She said during the investigation that she made the acquaintance of the Islamic scholar during a book signing a few months before the facts in question, and then saw him again during a conference in September. That was followed by an increasingly intimate correspondence on social media.

Tariq Ramadan affirmed on Monday that he wanted “to fight” against “the lie and the manipulation”. The Swiss intellectual, a charismatic and controversial figure in European Islam, risks between two to ten years in prison. The verdict is expected on May 24. “There are multiple contradictions between what has been said and what is in the file,” Attorney Zimeray stressed.

Sexual coercion

The prosecution’s final argument should take place at the end of the afternoon and the defense’s final argument on Wednesday.

Tariq Ramadan claims that he never told the plaintiff that he would be in Geneva on the evening in question and maintains that it was she who proposed a coffee and invited herself to his hotel room. He admits to having embraced her before ending the encounter. According to the indictment, however, he is guilty of having committed “rape three times” during the same night and “sexual coercion”.

Tariq Ramadan, now 60, is facing trial in France for similar acts. A PhD from the University of Geneva, where he wrote a thesis on the founder of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, who was his grandfather, Tariq Ramadan has been a professor of contemporary Islamic studies at Oxford University in the United Kingdom and a visiting professor in numerous universities in Morocco, Malaysia, Japan, and Qatar. In France he is suspected of rapes committed between 2009 to 2016 against four women, an issue that triggered his fall in 2017.

The Paris Prosecutor’s Office has requested his referral in July before a criminal court. It is up to the investigating judges in charge of the investigation to order a trial or not. The French case earned him more than nine months in pre-trial detention in 2018, from which he was released in November of the same year, remaining since then under judicial control. He is restricted to residing in France but benefits from special authorization to leave French territory to return to Switzerland.