The Swiss Islamologist Tariq Ramadan will be tried next year for rape by the Geneva courts, for facts dating back more than 14 years, the prosecutor's office said Monday, December 5.
“
The Public Ministry confirms the filing of an indictment and the referral for trial before the Criminal Court of Mr. Tariq Ramadan.
The defendant is sent to trial for rape (art. 190 CP) and sexual coercion (art. 189 CP)
,” spokesperson Olivier Francey told AFP, confirming information published by Swiss public television RTS.
Rape, beatings and insults
In this case, the plaintiff, nicknamed "
Brigitte
" in the Swiss media, accuses the Islamologist, 60 years old today, of having dragged her into a hotel room in Geneva on the evening of October 28, 2008, where he allegedly subjected to brutal sexual acts, accompanied by beatings and insults.
Converted to Islam, she had met him a few months earlier during a book signing and a conference in September 2008.
An increasingly intimate correspondence followed on MSN and Facebook.
On the evening of the events, she had an appointment with the famous preacher for tea.
Read alsoTariq Ramadan case: Le Figaro had access to the psychiatric report
“
The Public Ministry limited itself to copying the complaint without integrating what disqualifies it.
It will now be up to the judges to restore the total innocence of Mr. Ramadan and we are calmly waiting to appear
, ”commented Monday to AFP the Geneva lawyer for Mr. Ramadan, Me Guerric Canonica.
The victim had filed a complaint with the Geneva courts in April 2018. The public prosecutor (prosecutor) had opened an investigation the same year.
“
My client carried this procedure with fear in her stomach.
She doesn't feel any sense of revenge but she is relieved and regains confidence in the institutions
," one of the victim's French lawyers, Me François Zimeray, told AFP on Monday, adding that the judgment will take place on the first semester 2023.
Multiple rape charges
The investigation progressed slowly because Tariq Ramadan, then in pre-trial detention in Paris on other rape charges, could not be heard.
Placed under judicial supervision upon his release in November 2018, he was prohibited from leaving French territory.
The prosecutor therefore had to wait for the green light from the French judicial authorities to hear him in Paris.
This measure was subsequently partially lifted, allowing Tariq Ramadan to attend witness hearings in 2020 in Geneva.
Tariq Ramadan, who filed a complaint for "
slanderous denunciation
" against "
Brigitte
", admitted having met the woman but claims to have given up on the sexual relationship, his lawyers then indicated.
In France, the Paris prosecutor's office requested in July that the Islamologist be tried at the assizes for the rapes of four women, which were allegedly committed between 2009 and 2016. But in August, his lawyers asked for the suspension of the instruction, as long as the Court of Appeal has not ruled on the expert opinions concluding that Tariq Ramadan's "
hold
" on the four plaintiffs.