Swiss Islamic Scholar Tariq Ramadan to Face Rape Accuser in French Inquiry

A first, no doubt. Accused of rape by a woman in Switzerland on the night of October 28 to 29, 2008, the theologian who has not yet been questioned in this case will be confronted with his accuser in France, reports the newspaper Libération. In this case, Marc Guéniat, spokesman for the Geneva Department of Justice, justifies the choice of this option by the fact that the French justice system was not deciding to authorize the accused to go to Geneva. To this end, he recalls, "a request for international judicial assistance has been sent to the French authorities." The French judges will have to set a date for the hearings and confrontations, the spokesman added.

On January 22, the French investigating judges, fearing the accused’s flight abroad, opposed the Swiss party’s request to question the theologian in Geneva. The French authorities therefore refused to facilitate the lifting of the accused’s judicial supervision, including a ban on leaving French territory, the same media reports. This accusation is refuted by Ramadan’s lawyer. The latter reminded the judges of the return of his client’s second Pakistani passport upon his release from prison, of which none of them were aware.

After a year of hesitation between Geneva and Paris, the Swiss prosecutor had also been forced to cancel the hearings of Tariq Ramadan, the plaintiff and witnesses, which he had scheduled for February and March 2019. Tired of waiting and faced with this judicial ping-pong, the victim filed an appeal in Geneva at the beginning of the summer, to denounce a denial of justice.

As for Tariq Ramadan, he has not spoken publicly about the accusations against him in Switzerland. However, in France, after several months of denials, he has acknowledged having had sexual relations with the three plaintiffs, arguing that they were consensual, the same media specifies.