Long-time readers may remember that the noted Swiss philosopher Tariq Ramadan has already been tried for rape and acquitted. But that was in Switzerland, and now it’s the turn of France.

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

Tariq Ramadan ordered to stand trial for rape of four women

July 7, 2023

The preacher will be tried by the criminal court of Paris for rapes committed between 2009 and 2016.

On Friday two investigating judges ordered a trial before the departmental criminal court of Paris for the Swiss preacher Tariq Ramadan, accused of the rapes of four women, a judicial source said, confirming sources close to the case.

Tariq Ramadan will be tried for the rapes allegedly committed between 2009 and 2016, according to the indictment order of which AFP has knowledge.

“A terrible admission of weakness”

A decision of a partial dismissal was also rendered concerning two plaintiffs. “Attempting to send a person to a trial court when a cassation court is charged with a nullification motion concerning a central point of the case is inadmissible,” reacted attorneys Philippe Ohayon, Ouadie Elhamamouchi, and Nabila Asmane, three of the lawyers for the Swiss (defendant) to AFP.

The defense (team) for Tariq Ramadan, indeed, filed an appeal in cassation after the validation of 11 May by the court of appeal of Paris of the capital psychiatric evaluations which it was contesting. “This umpteenth passage in force is a terrible admission of weakness,” they added. At the end of May, the speaker, who had also been accused by a woman in Switzerland in a matter dating back to 2008, was acquitted of the rape and sexual coercion accusation by a Geneva tribunal that ruled that there had been no proof against him.

Relief for plaintiffs

Attorney Laure Heinrich, who is representing three women in the case investigated in Paris, including two with Attorney Laura Ben Kemoun, said that her clients are delighted “with this decision and with the manifestly meticulous work done” by the magistrates. Attorney Ben Kemoun added that the plaintiffs were “relieved and ready for the future”.

In this case, emblematic of the #MeToo era, Tariq Ramadan, 60, at first denied having extramarital sexual relations before admitting to “relations of domination,” rough but “consensual”. The affair, which led to the downfall of this charismatic and contested figure of European Islam, was triggered at the end of October 2017 by the complaints of Henda Ayari, a former Salafist-turned-secular militant, and “Christelle”, who reported rapes respectively in 2012 in Paris and in 2009 in Lyon.

Between February 2018 and October 2020, Tariq Ramadan was successively charged with rape by the first two plaintiffs and three other potential victims. He was incarcerated for ten months.

Two of the victims had been identified by police from photos and messages recovered from his computer, while the third, a former escort girl, Mounia Rabbouj, had accused him of nine rapes during the period 2013-2014. The investigating judges finally decided to refer the preacher to the departmental criminal court, made up of professional magistrates and with no public jurors, for the rapes of Henda Ayari, Mounia Rabbouj, and one of the women identified by photo, as well as for rapes of a vulnerable person — “Christelle”.