Four and a half years after the opening of the investigation, this is a key step in one of the most publicized judicial soap operas of the #metoo wave in France. The Paris prosecutor’s office requested, on Tuesday July 12, the referral to the assizes of the Swiss Islamologist Tariq Ramadan for the rapes of four women, between 2009 and 2016. “Despite the repeated denials of the indicted, the judicial investigation has brought together many incriminating elements”believe two deputy prosecutors in their submissions, that The world has consulted.
In the fall of 2017, Tariq Ramadan had been targeted by complaints from “Christelle” – a borrowed first name – and from Henda Ayari. They then denounced rapes suffered years earlier in Parisian hotels. In February 2018, the theologian was twice indicted, for “rape” and “vulnerable person rape”. In the process, he was placed in pre-trial detention, and remained there for ten months.
After initially denying any extramarital relationship, he had made an about-face, in the summer of 2018, in view of the hundreds of explicit messages discovered during the investigation. From then on, he had argued that sexual intercourse was certainly violent but consented.
In February 2020, the investigating judges added two indictments, for the rapes of two other women. Before a fifth, in October 2020, concerning rapes denounced by Mounia Rabbouj, which would have been committed in 2012 and 2013. A consented relationship, like all the others, according to Tariq Ramadan.
One in five indictments dismissed
The prosecution requested, on Tuesday, a dismissal for only one of these five indictments. Noting that a woman “admitted before the investigating magistrate that he consented to being slapped and insulted”that“She did not oppose Tariq Ramadan, only asked him for more sweetness”and that the theologian ” has stopped “ when she told him of her refusal of a sexual practice, the magistrates consider that the offense “does not appear characterized”.
On the other hand, for the rest of the file – the testimonies of Henda Ayari, “Christelle”, Mounia Rabbouj and a fourth woman -, the Paris prosecutor’s office gives credence to the accounts of the complainants and sweeps away the main lines of Mr. Ramadan’s defense.
This last “has, to achieve his ends, acted according to the same modus operandi”, says the prosecution. First by choosing “particularly fragile women, with a chaotic life course”. Then, “Once this relationship of trust was established, the exchanges became more and more erotic, sexual, with a dominant-dominated relationship. (…) For those who tried to escape these exchanges, Tariq Ramadan threatened to end their virtual relationship. The “physical encounter” was “always on the initiative of Mr. Ramadan and fixed in a hotel”.
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