French prosecutors have requested a sentence of 18 years in prison against Swiss Islamologist Tariq Ramadan, who was already convicted in Switzerland for a brutal rape, during his rape trial in France. The preacher, who has failed to appear for the proceedings, faces accusations of raping three women. Consequently, the criminal court has issued an arrest warrant against him.
This Tuesday, a judicial source indicated that the 18-year sentence was sought by the Paris departmental criminal court, which is trying the case in absentia and behind closed doors.
In addition to the prison term, the public prosecutor’s office requested an arrest warrant for the accused, who has not presented himself to the French justice system since the trial began, along with a definitive ban from French territory following the completion of his sentence.
Commenting to Le Figaro, Me David-Olivier Kaminski, lawyer for Henda Ayari, stated: “The attorney general, for more than three hours, demonstrated the immense guilt of Tariq Ramadan. Whether he was present at the hearing or not, I think the requisitions would have been the same: relentless.”
Three victims and previous conviction
There are three different accusers in the trial. A former Salafist turned feminist activist, Ayari was the first to go public with her story in 2017. She testified that the assault occurred in 2012 at a Paris hotel during an Islamic conference. According to her account, the meeting was intended to be a religious discussion, but she says Ramadan became suddenly violent when she resisted his advances. She stated, “He choked me so hard that I thought I was going to die,” and described a night of repetitive insults and physical force.
Another alleged victim, Christelle, is a pseudonym for a woman who was left disabled after a car accident. She alleged that Ramadan raped her in a Lyon hotel room in 2009. Her testimony describes an exceptionally brutal encounter involving blows to the face and body, forced sexual acts, and being dragged by her hair. Her lawyers have noted that she was particularly vulnerable due to her physical disability at the time.
The third accuser joined the case later. She alleged that she was raped by Ramadan in 2016. Her testimony follows a similar pattern to the others, involving an initial meeting under the guise of an intellectual or religious exchange that allegedly turned into a violent sexual assault in a hotel room.
The current trial in Paris follows a 2024 ruling by a Swiss appeals court, which found Ramadan guilty of raping a woman identified as “Brigitte” in a Geneva hotel in 2008. In that case, the court sentenced him to three years in prison, of which one year was to be served. The Swiss judges cited “torture and barbarism” in their description of the assault, mirroring the language used by the accusers in the French case.
Ramadan initially denied having any sexual contact with these women, labeling them “compulsive liars.” However, his defense shifted significantly in 2018 after investigators recovered hundreds of text messages from a mobile phone belonging to “Christelle,” which supported her version of events
Fit to stand trial
The trial of Tariq Ramadan commenced on March 2 without his presence, according to Le Figaro. His legal team explained his absence by stating he had been hospitalized in Geneva, Switzerland, two days prior due to what they described as a “flare-up” of multiple sclerosis.
In response, the president of the criminal court, Corinne Goetzmann, ordered a medical assessment from two neurologists to determine if the trial should be postponed.
In the report read by the magistrate on March 6, experts concluded there was a “stability of multiple sclerosis” with “no sign of a recent outbreak,” determining that he was fit to appear before the criminal court. The court also indicated that an arrest warrant, “for immediate execution and dissemination,” was issued against him. Following these developments, his four lawyers chose to leave the courtroom, asserting they could not defend their client in what they termed a “parody of justice.”
