PARIS: The French authorities have expanded an investigation against Tariq Ramadan, a leading Islamic scholar already charged in France with raping two women, to include evidence from two more alleged victims, judicial sources said Sunday.
Ramadan, a Swiss national, 57, has already been charged in France with raping a disabled woman in 2009 and a feminist activist in 2012. He denies all the charges.
Paris prosecutors earlier this month instructed the investigating magistrate handling the case to look into the evidence from “two new potential victims” over incidents that took place in 2015 and 2016, a judicial source told AFP, confirming a report in Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper.
Investigators took witness statements from the two women after they were identified from documents found on his computers. The women themselves have not filed a criminal complaint.
But they both say they were led into a brutal sexual relationship with Ramadan, one from November-December 2015 and the other in March 2016.
“It was something other than physical rape, it went beyond that... there was a moral rape,” one of the women said in her testimony seen by AFP.
“He had such a hold on you that you did everything that he demanded. But this relationship was consensual, yes,” she said.
“I asked him to be milder, but he said ‘it is your fault, you deserve it’ and that he needed to be obeyed, which is what I did,” the other said.
Le Journal du Dimanche said prosecutors believe the two testimonies contained “serious and concurring” evidence that could incriminate Ramadan.
Ramadan was taken into custody in February 2018 and held for over nine months before being granted bail.
Authorities in Switzerland are also investigating him after receiving a rape complaint in that country while two other criminal complaints of rape have been filed relating to incidents in March 2018 and July 2019.
Ramadan has in the last week gone on a media offensive to deny all the allegations against him, publishing a book called “Duty of Truth” and insisting all his relationships have been consensual.
Ramadan was professor of contemporary Islamic studies at Oxford University until he was forced to take leave when rape allegations surfaced at the height of the “Me Too” movement in late 2017.
France expands rape probe against Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan
France expands rape probe against Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan
- Ramadan has already been charged in France with raping a disabled woman in 2009 and a feminist activist in 2012
- He denies all the charges
UN chief calls Ukraine war ‘a stain on our collective conscience’
- Guterres warned that the fighting posed direct risks to the safe and secure operation of Ukraine’s nuclear sites
WASHINGTON: Four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said the war there remained “as a stain on our collective conscience” and reiterated calls for an immediate ceasefire. In remarks for a session of the United Nations Security Council to mark the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion, Guterres commended the efforts of the United States and others to end the war, but said concrete measures were needed to de-escalate and create space for diplomacy.
Referring to Russia’s invasion, Guterres said: “We have witnessed the cascading consequences of this blatant violation of international law.”
He said more than 15,000 civilians had been killed in Ukraine since the start of the war and over 41,000 hurt. Among those killed or hurt were 3,200 children.
Guterres’ remarks were read on his behalf by Rosemary DiCarlo, the UN under-secretary-general for peacebuilding.
Guterres warned that the fighting posed direct risks to the safe and secure operation of Ukraine’s nuclear sites, and added: “This unconscionable game of nuclear roulette must cease immediately.”
He urged UN member states to fully fund humanitarian assistance and said that any settlement to the war must uphold the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders.
“Enough with the death. Enough with the destruction. Enough with the broken lives and shattered futures,” he added.
“It is time for an immediate, full and unconditional ceasefire – the first step toward a just peace that saves lives and ends the endless suffering.
