Islamologist Tariq Ramadan was referred this Thursday to the departmental criminal court by the Paris Court of Appeal. He is accused of raping three women. A fourth case, for which the investigating judges had requested a trial, was dismissed. An “incomprehensible” decision for the lawyers of this fourth woman.
The Paris Court of Appeal decided Thursday to refer Swiss Islamologist Tariq Ramadan to the departmental criminal court for rapes against three women and dismissed the case of a fourth, AFP learned from lawyers in this case . The investigating chamber of the Court of Appeal examined on March 29 the appeal filed by the defense of the Swiss Islamologist, 61, who contested his dismissal ordered in July 2023 by two investigating judges of the Paris court .
In his written submissions, which AFP had seen, attorney general Matthieu Bourrette had requested that only the aggravated rape of “Christelle”, committed in Lyon in October 2009, be held against the Islamologist. The representative of the public prosecutor had in fact considered that the evidence was sufficient to characterize such a crime.
On the other hand, he had ruled out the “control” that Tariq Ramadan would have exercised over “Christelle” and his other accusers: Henda Ayari, an ex-Salafist turned secular activist who had triggered the affair by filing a complaint in October 2017 for rape. which would have taken place in 2012 in Paris; Mounia Rabbouj, a former escort girl who accused him of nine rapes between 2013 and 2014; a third woman for acts dating back to 2016. He therefore requested a dismissal of the charges concerning them.
The case of Mounia Rabbouj dismissed
But the court of appeal ultimately took a position even different from that of the Paris prosecutor’s office, the Parisian investigating judges and the attorney general at the court of appeal, by dismissing the only case of Mounia Rabbouj, according to the sources close to the case. My Laure Heinich and Laura Ben Kemoun, lawyers for “Christelle” and Mounia Rabbouj, denounced a “particularly incomprehensible” decision. “Why is one excluded and not the others? No one can understand this decision”, which will not make it possible to judge “the complexity and overall nature of the case”, lamented Mr. Heinich.
Henda Ayari’s lawyer, Me David-Olivier Kaminski welcomed a “victory for justice. Ms. Ayari will have the right to a trial which will allow justice to say whether Mr. Tariq Ramadan is really innocent or guilty.”
Me Pascal Garbarini, one of Tariq Ramadan’s lawyers, assured his side that “the fight continues for the innocence” of his client. The lawyer, who had requested the dismissal of the case, “continues to think that there are no elements both materially and in terms of influence” against his client.
The defense, like the two lawyers for the civil parties, were considering an appeal to the Court of Cassation on Thursday afternoon.
