GENEVA: Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan, who faces a string of allegations in Switzerland and France, was discovered responsible of rape by a Swiss appeals courtroom on Tuesday (Sep 10), overturning an earlier decrease courtroom acquittal.
After being acquitted final 12 months, a Geneva appeals courtroom stated it had discovered the 62-year-old former Oxford College professor “responsible of rape and sexual coercion” of a lady in a Geneva lodge 15 years in the past.
It sentenced him to 3 years in jail, two of them suspended, marking the primary responsible verdict he has been handed.
The decision was barely extra lenient than the three years in jail – half suspended – requested by the prosecutor within the appeals case in Might.
“Our shopper is in fact relieved, contemplating what she has needed to endure for the reality to return out,” the lady’s attorneys Veronique Fontana and Robert Assael instructed AFP, hailing that “the reality has lastly triumphed”.
Francois Zimeray, the lawyer who represented the lady in the course of the first trial, in the meantime emphasised that the ruling “got here at the price of years of ache and hardship suffered with dignity by the plaintiff”.
“We’ve got hardly ever expertise such brutal proceedings.”
The ruling – dated Aug 28 however solely made public Tuesday – was anticipated to be appealed at Switzerland’s highest courtroom.
One in every of Ramadan’s French attorneys, Philippe Ohayon, slammed the “many contradictions” within the judicial course of.
Ramadan, a charismatic but controversial determine in European Islam, has all the time maintained his innocence.
Ramadan’s accuser, a Muslim convert recognized solely as “Brigitte”, had testified earlier than the courtroom that he subjected her to rape and different violent intercourse acts in a Geneva lodge room in the course of the night time of October 28, 2008.
The lawyer representing Brigitte stated she was repeatedly raped and subjected to “torture and barbarism”.
“TRAP”
Ramadan stated that Brigitte invited herself as much as his room. He let her kiss him, he stated, earlier than shortly ending the encounter.
He stated he was the sufferer of a “lure”.
Brigitte was in her forties on the time of the alleged assault.
She filed a grievance 10 years later, telling the courtroom she felt emboldened to return ahead following related complaints filed in opposition to Ramadan in France.
The appeals verdict overturns a decrease courtroom discovering final 12 months acquitting Ramadan of rape and sexual coercion, citing an absence of proof, contradictory testimonies and “love messages” despatched by the plaintiff after the alleged assault.
However throughout their attraction, Brigitte’s attorneys alleged that Ramadan had exercised vital “management” over the lady, suggesting she had suffered one thing akin to Stockholm syndrome.
The three appeals courtroom judges pointed to “witness testimony, certificates, medical notes and personal professional opinions in line with the info offered by the plaintiff”.
“Components collected in the course of the investigation have thus satisfied the chamber of the guilt of the accused,” the courtroom stated in a press release.
Ramadan was a professor of latest Islamic research at Oxford and held visiting roles at universities in Qatar and Morocco.
He was pressured to take go away of absence in 2017 when rape allegations surfaced in France on the top of the “Me Too” motion.
In France, he’s suspected of raping three girls between 2009 and 2016.
His massive defence crew is combating a Paris appeals courtroom choice in June that the instances can go to trial.
