TARIQ RAMADAN. The trial, in Switzerland, for rape, of the Islamologist opened this Monday, May 15, 2023. The sexagenarian claims to be innocent.
The facts go back 15 years. However, it is only since this Monday, May 15, 2023 that Tariq Ramadan can explain himself to the court. This Swiss Islamologist is accused, by a woman, of a rape which was allegedly committed in a hotel in Geneva. It is therefore in the second most populated city in Switzerland that the sexagenarian is judged. On the first day of the trial, only the grandson of one of the founders of the Muslim Brotherhood spoke at the bar. Or rather, with a microphone, from his bench. Indicted in other similar cases in France (cases in which he has already been imprisoned as a preventive measure), Tariq Ramadan delivered his version of the facts, far removed from the story of this Swiss woman calling herself Brigitte (a first name of borrowed) and wearing a wig to conceal his true identity.
“She used to tell me that I was sexy and that she loved me”
Accused of wanting to “play the clock” (the facts will be prescribed in October 2023), the theologian assured that he wanted to be acquitted on the expected date of the verdict, May 24. “I am here to answer because I want justice to be done,” he said in the preamble. Because in his eyes, “the complainant’s primary objective was my moral fall.” An introduction following which the 60-year-old Swiss unfolded his story. With a line of conduct: for him, “there was no sexual relationship.”
The respondent has, throughout the hearing, rejected the charges against him as a whole, bringing in turn towards the alleged victim. “She was the one watching me on social media. She sent me 40 messages before she saw me on the night of the incident. She told me I was sexy and that she loved me. She was the one who offered me a coffee”, he lists, while the origin of the case is based on a coffee proposal made by Tariq Ramadan to this woman. It was October 28, 2008. Initially, the complainant and the respondent had met at a book signing, before seeing each other again at a conference. This is how the contact was established between the two.
“I rejected her”
A third meeting therefore takes place in a café in Geneva. The discussion drags on into the evening, to the point that the two are turned away by the receptionist. This is where the versions differ. The exchange would have continued in the hotel room where Tariq Ramadan resides, near the cafe. His accuser claims to have then been raped, when he denies everything: “if there had been a fight in this room, it would have been heard.” And to add: “If I had had a sexual relationship with the Swiss complainant, with what is known today about my practices, why would I deny it?”
Over the course of his answers, Tariq Ramadan claimed to have been “trapped”, saying that the account of the Swiss woman stuck to the accounts of his other accusers in France. “What made me agree to meet her is that she is seductive, intelligent. […] It’s a woman who writes to a man: ‘I love you, I like you'”, he explained, presenting the accuser as “a woman in love, who will feel rejected.” in any case, affirms it: “I rejected it.”