Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan convicted of rape on appeal in Switzerland: court

Swiss leading Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan arrives at Geneva's courthouse on May 27, 2024, prior to his appeal trial over charges of rape and sexual coercion. (AFP)

GENEVA: A Swiss appeals court on Tuesday said it found Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan guilty of rape and sexual coercion in a Geneva hotel 15 years ago, overturning an earlier lower court acquittal.
The court said it “annuls the judgment of 24 May 2023,” and sentenced the 62-year-old former Oxford University professor to three years in prison, two of them suspended.
The announced verdict, first reported by public broadcaster RTS, was slightly more lenient than the three years prison — half suspended — requested by the prosecutor in the case.
Ramadan, a charismatic yet controversial figure in European Islam, has always maintained his innocence.
Ramadan’s accuser, a Muslim convert identified only as “Brigitte,” had testified before the court that he subjected her to rape and other violent sex acts in a Geneva hotel room during the night of October 28, 2008.
The lawyer representing Brigitte said she was repeatedly raped and subjected to “torture and barbarism.”
Ramadan said that Brigitte invited herself up to his room. He let her kiss him, he said, before quickly ending the encounter.
He said he was the victim of a “trap.”
Brigitte was in her forties at the time of the alleged assault. She filed a complaint 10 years later, telling the court she felt emboldened to come forward following similar complaints filed against Ramadan in France.