Tariq Ramadan was questioned Thursday, February 13 by investigating judges at the Paris court. He was charged with the rape of two other women, identified last year by the investigation, after being interrogated.

These two women were questioned as witnesses by the police in February 2019. Their photos were found on the computer of the 57-year-old Swiss Islamologist, who has already been under investigation for two rapes since February 2, 2018. Tariq Ramadan disputes all the accusations.

"There is a desire to prosecute Tariq Ramadan at all costs and against the evidence," reacted to AFP his lawyer, Me Emmanuel Marsigny.

"While the lies of the first accusers are now clearly established, he has just been re-examined while the first woman targeted herself declared that the relations had been 'consented' and that the other woman did not 'is never complaint of their two meetings, "he added.

"This case becomes grotesque, it is especially very disturbing by its drift and the deviation of the rules of law", he concluded.

"Dominant-dominated" relationship

To investigators, the two women told in February 2019 how this "manipulator" had each dragged them into a virtual "dominant-dominated" relationship before a brutal meeting. "I asked him to be softer, but he said to me: 'It's your fault, you deserve it' (...) and that you had to obey," reported one of the two, recounting a relationship of 2015.

"It is of a different order than physical rape, (...) there is moral rape," said the other, about two meetings in March 2016 in Paris. "But that relationship was agreed, yes. There should be another offense for this kind of people," she added.

The latter, aged 37, ended up bringing a civil action recently, becoming the 5th woman in France to file a complaint against the Islamologist. The other woman was not contacted by the judges, a source familiar with the matter.

Tariq Ramadan has been under investigation since 2018 for "rape" and "rape of a vulnerable person", for the facts denounced by Henda Ayari and "Christelle", respectively in 2012 in Paris and in 2009 in Lyon. A third woman, Mounia Rabbouj, then accused him of nine rapes over the period 2013-2014. For these facts, he is not prosecuted.

A fourth complaint was filed last summer by a woman nicknamed "Elvira", but her account is not corroborated by the verifications of the criminal brigade and she did not go to the summons of justice.

Released on November 16, 2018, after almost 10 months of detention, Tariq Ramadan handed over his Swiss and British passports and is prohibited from leaving France.

With AFP

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