New rape complaint filed against Tariq Ramadan the grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder

A fourth woman has filed a rape complaint against prominent Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan, jailed on preliminary rape charges in France following three other women’s allegations.

The new complaint could lead to further prosecution and threaten his freedom after months in prison.

This complaint led the Paris prosecutor’s office to issue on July 26 a suppletive indictment in the investigation against the Muslim scholar for “rape” and “threats or acts of intimidation to determine a victim not to complain or to retract, was learned Sunday from judicial source, confirming information from the Journal du Dimanche and Europe 1.

Ramadan’s lawyers Emmanuel Marsigny didn’t comment on the latest allegations but confirmed today to the AFP this complaint.

According to Europe 1, this complaint was filed at the end of May by “a woman, now in her fifties, who was working as a radio journalist.

She accuses the Muslim intellectual rape with a person of his staff during a meeting for an interview on May 23, 2014 in the hotel room of Ramadan, Sofitel Lyon.

“It went very quickly, it was of an incredible violence,” said the plaintiff to justice, according to statements cited by Europe 1, recounting having been raped several times by the two men.

While threatening Ramadan to file a complaint before leaving the hotel room, he said, “You do not know how powerful I am”.

Since February 2018, he is indicted for two rapes, including one vulnerable person, accusations he contests: in October 2009 in Lyon on a woman nicknamed Christelle in the media and, in spring 2012 in Paris, on an old Salafist became secular activist, Henda Ayari.

For the third complaint, he is currently placed under the intermediate status of assisted witness.

In mid-November, the preacher, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, was released under judicial supervision with a ban on leaving French territory. He had to pay a deposit of 300,000 euros and return his Swiss passport.

On March 19, the Paris Court of Appeal upheld the indictments he wanted to see lifted, pointing to his desire to “hide the reality” of his relations with his accusers. Indeed, after having denied for months all sexual relations with his accusers, he had turned around in the fall and pleaded “consented” relations.

Mr Ramadan, who will have 57 years, must also be heard in the autumn in Paris by a Swiss prosecutor for possible indictment in the investigation opened in Switzerland.

Swiss academic Tariq Ramadan, a professor of Islamic studies, said on Monday he had engaged in “sex games” with two women in France who accuse him of rape, but said the “submissive-dominant” relationships were consensual.

It is the first time in the near one-year long case that the Oxford University professor, who has taken a leave of absence from the British institution, admits to having had sexual relations with the plaintiffs.

“He can finally speak freely, and he’s relieved,” his lawyer, Emmanuel Marsigny, told reporters after Ramadan, the grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, was heard by investigators in Paris.

Ramadan faced one of the accusers, named only as “Christelle”, during a 10-hour confrontation on September 18.

The woman, an Islam convert who suffers from disabilities arising from a car accident, says Ramadan raped her in October 2009 in a hotel room in Lyon, southeastern France.

Ramadan said he had “relations akin to sex games of the submissive-dominant kind, but always in a consensual and knowing way,” his lawyer said.

“It has been one year now that Mr Ramadan’s defendants have been playing tricks to save his cause. But the truth is that he lied from the beginning of this case by denying he had sexual relations and that it took one year to confess,” Jonas Haddad, a lawyer for the other plantiff, Henda Ayari, told Reuters.

“Will it take him another year to confess the rest?” he said.

Ramadan’s lawyer said a series of text messages found in the two women’s mobile phones showed the relations were consensual. He filed a request for Ramadan, in custody since he was notified of the French investigation on February 2, to be freed.

Married with four children, Ramadan is a grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hasan al-Banna. He enjoys a substantial following among young Muslims and has challenged French restrictions on wearing veils.

He also faces a third criminal complaint for rape by a Swiss woman in Geneva.