The conclusions of Dr. Daniel Zagury no longer have any value in the eyes of justice.
The Paris Court of Appeal on Thursday annulled its psychiatric expertise according to which the women who accuse Tariq Ramadan of rape were partly under its control.
In May 2020, the famous psychiatrist had questioned several complainants or witnesses without the agreement of the investigating judges.
The investigating chamber therefore invalidated his approach for procedural flaw.
The expert was only allowed to consult the file, which contained the statements of the women concerned.
The court judges, however, that "the analysis of the relations that may have existed between the eight plaintiffs and witnesses identified (...) and Tariq Ramadan constitutes a central element of the procedure which must imperatively be the subject of an in-depth study", which could be entrusted to "a college of experts", according to the judgment.
"The expert committed an abuse of power which was sanctioned, it is the fair application of the law", welcomed Philippe Ohayon, one of the advice of Tariq Ramadan, indicted for suspicion of rape in five women, which the Swiss intellectual firmly contests, pleading for consensual relationships.
A second opinion is ordered
"This decision confirms that there is no more Ramadan file", assure two other defense lawyers, Nabila Asmane and Ouadie Elhamamouchi, considering "the notion of hold" as "a lifeline to save this instruction of judicial shipwreck ”.
Conversely, for Eric Morain, lawyer for two plaintiffs, "the court ordered a second opinion, proof, if any, that the issue of influence is more than ever at the heart of this case".
Read also In court, a tense face-to-face between Tariq Ramadan and one of his accusers
The debate on the notion of control has emerged in this case after the complainants were sometimes put in difficulty by the revelation of their exchanges with Tariq Ramadan, considered "ambivalent" by the investigators since a first complaint in October 2017.
In his report, Dr. Zagury described in four stages the relationship in "for" the intellect established by Tariq Ramadan: a "shining tuel veneration" encountered on social networks, then exchanges "more and more eroticized with a sado-color. masochistic of domination / submission ”, followed by an encounter“ described as a sudden and brutal sequence ”towards extreme sexual practices, before a fourth phase of contradictory feelings (resentment, guilt, revenge, admiration and persistent subjection).
This judicial debate on the notion of influence is essential for the investigating judges who must determine, before ordering a possible trial or the abandonment of the proceedings, whether or not the Islamologist can be accused of having imposed acts. of sexual penetration by a form of "moral constraint".
