2023-05-24 11:34:17
“The court was unable to form an intimate conviction of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt”. Judged for rape ” three times “ et “sexual coercion” During the night of October 28 to 29, 2008, in a hotel in Geneva, the Swiss Islamologist Tariq Ramadan was acquitted by the Criminal Court of Geneva. The state of Geneva was ordered to pay 151,000 Swiss francs for its defense costs.
The plaintiff immediately announced an appeal. Three years in prison, half of which was firm, was requested last week by the prosecutor.
The highly anticipated trial of Tariq Ramadan revealed two opposing versions of the facts. Mr. Ramadan, a charismatic and contested figure in European Islam, denies any sexual act and claims to be the victim of a ” trap “.
The plaintiff, “Brigitte”, who chose this pseudonym to protect herself from threats, asserts on the other hand that the Islamologist subjected her to brutal sexual acts accompanied by beatings and insults in the room of the Geneva hotel where he was staying the night of October 28, 2008. « Brigitte »now 57, filed a complaint ten years after the fact, in 2018, encouraged, she explained, by the fact that other women had done the same against Tariq Ramadan in France.
The two agree that they spent the night together in the hotel room, which she left early in the morning to return to her home. Tariq Ramadan assures that it was she who invited herself into his room. He says he let himself be kissed before quickly ending the exchange. A version that denies « Brigitte »who said during the hearing that he had “fear of dying” under the blows of the Islamologist.
Suspicions of rape in France
During the hearing, the defense tried to demonstrate the innocence of Tariq Ramadan by ensuring that there was no scientific evidence. His lawyers also accused « Brigitte » and the women who filed a complaint in France for having forged links with the aim of bringing down the Islamologist.
The plaintiff’s lawyers argued that she had indeed consulted two psychiatrists in the days following the night of October 28, 2008 to tell them the facts and tell them about her state of stress. She said during the investigation that she had met the Islamologist at a signing session a few months before the facts, before seeing him again at a conference, then corresponding in an increasingly intimate tone. on social networks.
In France, Tariq Ramadan is suspected of rape committed between 2009 and 2016 on four women, a case which triggered his fall in 2017. The Paris prosecutor’s office requested his referral to an assize court in July and it is up to the judges to instruction to order a trial or not. The French file earned him more than nine months of pre-trial detention in 2018. He has since been under judicial supervision in France, but has been granted exceptional authorizations to travel to Switzerland.
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