From Accusations To Acquittal: Tariq Ramadan’s Legal Journey

In a long-drawn-out courtroom battle, a Swiss court, on May 24th, acquitted the prominent Muslim writer and former Oxford professor Tariq Ramadan of all four counts of rape and sexual coercion against him in Geneva. The court has also decided to compensate the academician for his legal costs, awarding him up to 151,000 Swiss francs ($167,000) but rejecting his claim for the moral damages of the allegations.

An author of around 30 books and nearly a hundred articles in both French and English for The Guardian, Al Jazeera, The Huffington Post, and many other international publications, Ramadan was accused of sexual misconduct by a woman who wished to be known only under the assumed name of “Brigitte.” Ms. Brigitte, who claimed to be in her forties at the time of the alleged assault, filed a complaint ten years later, telling the court she felt emboldened to come forward in the wake of the #MeToo Movement. Tariq Ramadan faces similar charges and is accused by four more women in France who also claim they found their confidence from the many #MeToo confessions across the globe. Ramadan, who has taken a leave of absence from Oxford University since 2017, denies the allegations, attributing them to “a campaign of slander clearly orchestrated by my longtime adversaries” and says he wants to fight against the “lies and manipulation.”

Tariq Ramadan, ranked as one of the 100 most influential people in the world and by Foreign Policy readers as one of the top 100 most influential thinkers in the world, is a member of the UK Foreign Office Advisory Group on Freedom of Religion or Belief and the grandson of the famous founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna. Founder of the Islamic Centre of Geneva and the Centre for Islamic Studies and Research, he is a professor of contemporary Islamic studies at St Antony’s College, Oxford, a visiting professor at the Université Mundiapolis in Morocco, a senior research fellow at Doshisha University in Japan, and has been a visiting professor at the Faculty of Islamic Studies at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar and the director of the Research Centre of Islamic Legislation and Ethics (CILE) in Doha. An advisor to the EU on religious issues, he was sought for advice by the EU on a commission on “Islam and Secularism,” and in September 2005, he was invited to join a task force by the government of the United Kingdom. He is also the founder and President of the European Muslim Network, a Brussels-based think-tank that gathers European Muslim intellectuals and activists. In 2001, Paul Donnelly rhetorically called him “Tariq Ramadan: The Muslim Martin Luther?”

In 2018, the Swiss-born writer of Egyptian heritage was charged with rape in Geneva, followed by similar accusations in France. The elated Mr. Ramadan left the court on Wednesday, surrounded by his relatives, smiling but without commenting. “It is a verdict inspired by reason,” said his Swiss lawyer, Yael Hayat. In its ruling, the Geneva court found Ms. Brigitte’s account “generally constant and detailed.”

However, it was not corroborated “by any material element, such as traces of DNA samples, security camera footage from the hotel, or findings of traumatic injuries or gynecological violence.” “There is no doubt that the complainant felt like she had a bad experience that evening,” the president of the court said, “but the existence of this stress does not make it possible to confirm the materiality of the alleged facts.”

With the victory in Geneva, judges in Paris are yet to decide whether or not to proceed with a trial for the allegations against him in France. His French lawyer, Philippe Ohayon, said, “Too many implausibilities and contradictions led to a perfectly logical acquittal in fact and in law.” When asked about the impact the Geneva case might have on the French file, his lawyer Hayat said, “We simply hope that this verdict will resonate.” Ramadan has repeatedly said allegations of rape against him in France and Switzerland are a politically motivated plot and that he is a victim of bias in the French justice system.

A nominee for Religious Advocate of the Year at the British Muslim Awards, he has, since his detention, been hospitalized several times for multiple sclerosis, diagnosed in 2014, while his attorney continues to argue that his condition, diagnosed by nine doctors, including the chief prison physician, has confirmed that his health was incompatible with incarceration. In the nine months that he spent in a French prison before being released on probation, with no permission to leave the country, he was held in a high-security prison in total solitary confinement. During the first 45 days, he was denied family visits and phone calls, a right enjoyed even by common criminals. His postal mail was restricted and censored without any apparent reasons, while his family and the legal team were not always kept informed when he was transferred to a hospital. The examining magistrates even refused him access to his own legal file. His family and well-wishers launched an extensive Free Tariq Ramadan Campaign before they could finally secure his pretrial bail after nearly ten months of imprisonment.

While the French judiciary keeps mulling over whether or not to proceed with the proceedings to prosecute him for the allegations against him since 2017, Tariq Ramadan has been tried and found guilty in the mass media even before his trial could begin, thus creating a fictional persona that bears no resemblance to the Tariq Ramadan who is widely respected for his integrity. The media has failed to report contradictory statements by the complainants and key facts such as the revealed evidence “missed” by the prosecution that showed that Ramadan was traveling at the time of one of the alleged crimes and that one of the accusers was, in fact, at her brother’s wedding on the night that she claims Ramadan raped her. The case shows a shocking disdain for standard protocol, with story after story collapsing and contradicting many initial statements. Ms. Ayari, one of the first petitioners, has since her accusation even admitted to attempting to contact him via Facebook in an effort to seduce and entrap him. The second plaintiff, “Christelle,” admitted to the police that she created fake accounts under Tariq Ramadan’s name to disseminate false information, and technical investigation showed that the two women, Ms. Ayari and Christelle, have four numbers in common, including those of well-known Islamophobes and opponents of Mr. Ramadan, which were called upon a total of 272 times by them between May and November 2017. In fact, Judge Debacq, a former French magistrate in the Ramadan case, was even revealed to have been previously personally involved with Ms. Christelle, a fact he chose not to reveal.

During his final statements in the Swiss court, the author of “In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad,” Ramadan asked the court not to try him on his “real or supposed ideology” and urged the judges not to be “influenced by the media and political noise.” “Forget I’m Tariq Ramadan,” he said.