EU Business School Updated Statement about the criminal complaint against Ahmed Zaki, student accused of over 50 sexual crimes

This is an updated statement regarding the actions taken against Ahmed Zaki after collaboration with the collective @AssaultPolice leading to Ahmed Zaki’s expulsion last week and the filing of a criminal complaint at the Spanish police today.

Last Wednesday, July 1st at 10am CEST, online allegations about Ahmed Zaki, were brought to our attention. Five hours later, at 3pm CEST and after having assessed the situation, he was formally suspended. Ahmed Zaki was an online student at EU Business School and in February 2020, spent three weeks at the Barcelona campus.

During the next 48 hours, EU Business School’s management, department heads and outside council worked around the clock, undertaking the necessary due diligence, liaising and responding to the EU Community, communicating with all stakeholders and collaborating with the appropriate parties and authorities. During this process, EU Business School’s management also received documented formal complaints of online harassment from some students.

Following the due process undertaken, EU Business School’s Board held an extensive meeting and was compelled to expel Ahmed Zaki effective Friday at 1.15pm CEST.

On the morning of Saturday July 4th, an extremely serious claim was posted anonymously on Instagram about an assault at EU Business School. Immediately upon learning of this, EU Business School collaborated with the collective @AssaultPolice and requested support from outside council to liaise with Spanish Judicial Police. After further review and collaboration, this claim was found to be false and retracted by @AssaultPolice.

Nevertheless, today, EU Business School has gone further in its actions and filed a criminal complaint with the Spanish police in order to enable the justice system to fully investigate and uphold the law for our community. In collaboration with @AssaultPolice, it has requested a full enquiry to ensure that Ahmed Zaki is held responsible for his actions.

The safety of our students is our primary concern. EU Business School opened a line for students who wish to have legal support and formally file a complaint. Students can either contact the General Counsel of EU Business School directly or reach out to our law firm Roca Junyent. The contact details are below. Alternatively, @AssaultPolice has made resources available, and we actively encourage any victim to contact them and come forward.

EU Business School has been an inclusive and international institution for the past 45 years. In this spirit, we reiterate that we have a zero tolerance towards any such actions which are not only contrary to our ethics but our core beliefs as an institution and as people.

We thank everyone for the hundreds of messages of concern and support we have received and particularly @AssaultPolice whose work and collaboration have been instrumental in this matter. We continue to support our community globally.

For EU Business School, Carl Craen, Vice-President & Managing director