Former Oxford Islamic scholar jailed for rape in Switzerland
The ruling overturns an acquittal in May 2023 by a lower court which had claimed there was a lack of material evidence to convict the noted Islamic scholar of rape and sexual coercion.
A Swiss appeals court has found a former Oxford professor guilty of rape and sexual coercion nearly 16 years ago and sentenced him to a year in prison.
In a written ruling made public on Tuesday, the court in Geneva handed noted Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan, 62, a three-year prison sentence of which two were suspended, according to a copy of the decision.
He was ordered to pay damages to the complainant as well as legal and other fees totalling more than 100,000 Swiss francs (about £90,000).
The verdict included intimate details of Ramadan allegedly forcing the woman to have sex and preventing her from leaving a Geneva hotel room in October 2008, as well as social media exchanges they had before and after.
The verdict comes about 17 months after a lower court cleared him, citing a lack of material evidence.
Ramadan, who is Swiss, can appeal to Switzerland’s highest court to overturn the ruling, which took place on 28 August but was only made public earlier today.
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“The Criminal Appeal and Review Division found that several testimonies, certificates, medical notes and opinions of private experts aligned with the complainant’s testimony,” the Geneva canton’s government said.
Ramadan was handed preliminary charges for rape over two alleged assaults in France over a decade ago. He was jailed in February 2018 and released on bail nine months later, pending trial.
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A third woman filed a rape complaint against him in France in March last year.
Ramadan, a grandson of Hasan al-Banna, an Islamist thinker and activist who founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, has consistently denied wrongdoing and filed suit saying the allegations were false.
