France: Prosecution Requests 18 Years in Prison for Tariq Ramadan (Update: Convicted)

Tariq Ramadan, grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hasan al-Banna, has been convicted of rape in absentia by a Paris court and sentenced to 18 years in prison. Ramadan, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, is in Switzerland, where he was born. He is known throughout the world as an expert, philosopher, and scholar on Islam. I have heard him speak twice in California and was able to ask him a question in a brief one-on-one setting. 

It is unclear what will happen now since Ramadan, who has always protested his innocence, is a Swiss citizen and is not currently in France.

The below article in Le Figaro is translated by Fousesquawk. Just as we were finishing the translation, the news broke that Ramadan had been convicted and sentenced to 18 years in prison as requested by the prosecutor.

Rape trial: 18 years in prison requested for Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan

The preacher, who never appeared at his trial, is accused of raping three women. The criminal court has issued an arrest warrant for him.

-Le Figaro and AFP

One day ago

A prison sentence of 18 years was requested Tuesday in the rape trial of Swiss Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan, in the Paris Departmental Criminal Court, which has tried him in absentia and behind closed doors for the rapes of three women, a judicial source indicated.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office also asked for an arrest warrant for the accused, who has not appeared before French justice since the beginning of his trial, as well as a permanent ban from French territory once his sentence is served. “The prosecutor, over the course of three hours, demonstrated the immense culpability of Tariq Ramadan. Whether he is present at the hearing or not, I think that the demands would have been the same: implacable,” Attorney David-Olivier Kaminski, lawyer for Henda Ayari, told Le Figaro.  

A “parody of justice” according to his 4 attorneys

The trial of Tariq Ramadan began on March 2 without him being present in the courtroom. His attorneys then explained that he had been hospitalized in Geneva, Switzerland 2 two days earlier due to what, according to them, was a “flare-up” of multiple sclerosis. The president of the criminal court, Corinne Goetzmann, then ordered a medical examination by two neurologists designed to evaluate his state of health in order to decide upon a postponement of the trial to a later date or not.In this report, read in the court by the magistrate on March 6, the experts concluded that “the multiple schlerosis (which the Islamic scholar had suffered from for several years), was stable, without signs of a recent flare-up, and stated that he could appear before the criminal court. The president then rejected a request for a postponement of the trial and decided that the 63-year-old accused would be tried in absentia behind closed doors as requested by the civil party. She also indicated that an arrest warrant to” be executed and disseminated immediately” would be issued against him. His four attorneys left the courtroom, stating that they could not defend their client in this “parody of justice”.