Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan goes on trial in Paris, accused of raping three women, could face 20 years in prison

MAR 3, 2026 9:00 AM
BY CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS

For egomaniac Islamic supremacists such as Ramadan, justice burns. He fooled the West for decades, but was convicted of rape in a Swiss court in 2024. Switzerland’s highest court rejected Ramadan’s rape conviction appeal and his lawyers announced in August that they were going to EU Court of Human Rights. No word since.

Now he faces justice in Paris on more rape charges, and up to two decades in jail. It is virtually inconceivable that he would actually spend all that time in prison, but if he did, he would be 83 years old when he gets out.
“Islam scholar Tariq Ramadan goes on trial in Paris accused of raping three women,” by Angelique Chrisafis, The Guardian, March 2, 2026: The prominent Swiss academic and Islam scholar Tariq Ramadan will go trial in Paris on Monday on charges of raping three women in France between 2009 and 2016.

Ramadan, who advised previous British governments on Islam and society, denies all the charges in a case that has been seen as one of the biggest repercussions of the #MeToo movement in France.

Ramadan, 63, was a professor of contemporary Islamic studies at the University of Oxford before taking a leave of absence in 2017 when rape allegations were first made against him. He took early retirement from Oxford in June 2021.

Ramadan is accused of the rape of three women. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.

Henda Ayari, 41, a former Salafist Muslim who is now a feminist campaigner, went to the police in 2017 to accuse Ramadan of rape, sexual violence, harassment and intimidation. She said he raped her in a hotel room in the east of Paris in the spring of 2012 during a conference where he was speaking.

Another woman, known by the pseudonym Christelle, told investigators Ramadan raped her in a Lyon hotel room in October 2009 during another conference and subjected her to a violent attack.

A third woman said Ramadan raped her in 2016.

At the start of the investigation in 2017, Ramadan, who is married with four children, denied any form of sexual encounter with the first two women. In 2018, he changed his account, telling investigating judges that he did have sexual relations with Ayari and Christelle, but that they had sought the encounters and fully consented to the “dominant-submissive” relationship….

Sarah Mauger-Poliak, the lawyer for Henda Ayari, told Agence-France Presse that the trial was “not a conspiracy or political battle” but simply a case of rape…..


France foils terror plot: Cleric arrested

March 22, 2024

Shafaq News/ French authorities have detained a cleric on charges of plotting a terrorist attack last year, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office revealed on Saturday.

The man, born in 1993, is under formal investigation for preparing a terrorist act and promoting terrorism online. He was taken into custody on Friday after appearing before a judge.

A source familiar with the case told AFP that investigators had identified the suspect’s interest in drone technology, attempts to acquire explosive materials, and research into possible targets between late 2023 and late 2024. No confirmed operational link between these activities has been established.

The suspect had previously been jailed in October 2024 for glorifying terrorism, the source noted, adding that he also lived in Syria and Iraq between 2014 and 2015 and has a criminal record related to that period.

His lawyer, Maxence Gallot, declined to comment when contacted by AFP.


French police arrest five, including an imam, in connection with knife attack on Paris police station

Henry Samuel, paris
14 OCTOBER 2019
The Telegraph

French police arrested overnight five people, including a Salafist imam, in connection with Mickael Harpon, the IT expert at Paris police headquarters who killed four colleagues in a knife attack this month.

Police swooped on the individuals in three locations in the northern suburbs of Paris around near the home of Harpon, 45, who was killed at the end of his stabbing spree on October 3.

The murders sparked soul-searching over how a man who converted to Islam 10 years ago and had adopted increasingly radical beliefs escaped detection despite working at a police intelligence unit whose job is to identity terror threats.

One of the people detained on Monday was an imam who preached at a mosque Harpon attended in Gonesse and who is on France's "Fiche S" list of potential security threats.

Last week, the mayor of Gonesse announced that the Muslim association which employed the imam, who followed the hard-line Salafist branch of Islam, had dismissed him.

Detectives suspect that Harpon had been in close contact with the imam in the months before his killing spree.

Investigators also found that Harpon had a USB key holding propaganda videos of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) as well as details on dozens of officers, raising fears he intended to pass them to other radicalised Islamists.

However, Isil has not claimed responsibility for the attack despite mentioning it in a propaganda statement last week.

A string of inquiries have been launched to examine how Harpon, who had severe hearing difficulties, fell through the security net despite telling colleagues he welcomed the Charlie Hebdo attacks in 2015.

A former domestic intelligence agent in contact with colleagues told Le Journal du Dimanche: “They all told me: ‘We knew he was radicalised’. I deduce that people on the ground were aware but that information failed to rise through the ranks.”

Interior minister Christophe Castaner has ordered a security check on all French intelligence services by the end of the year and pledged to introduce “automatic alerts” over any questionable acts or beliefs in the force. 
 

French Imam Indicted Over Antisemitic Sermon in Which He Cited Hadith Urging Violence Against Jews

DECEMBER 21, 2018
by Algemeiner Staff

The imam of the Grand Mosque of Toulouse, Mohamed Tatai, was indicted this week for “public verbal provocation to hatred or violence” following an investigation into an anti-semitic sermon he gave last year, French media outlets reported on Friday.

In the remarks in question, Tatai cited a hadith saying that on Judgment Day the Muslims will fight and kill the Jews.

The incitement charge was brought by the Toulouse Prosecutor’s Office.

In an interview with a French media outlet this past summer, Tatai claimed his words were taken “out of context” and that he had not called for violence.

In 2012, an Islamist gunman killed four Jews — a rabbi and three students — at a school in the southern French city.


French Muslim Cleric Calls Pope's Comments "hateful"

September 15th 2006

The rector of a mosque in the northern French city of Lille on Friday criticized as "hateful" recent controversial comments by Pope Benedict XVI about Islam.

"I just don't understand this statement. It's a kind of declaration of war for Islam and the Muslim world," Amar Lasfar said. "Muslims will take it as an offence, as a hateful provocation."

On Tuesday, during a speech in Regensburg, the pope quoted comments from a 14th-century Christian emperor which said the Prophet Mohammed had brought only "evil and inhuman" things to the world, and that Islam was spread "by the sword."

"With Pope John Paul II, there was respect," Lasfar said. "Benedict XVI is showing a different face."

His comments came one day after the head of France's largest Muslim organization, Dalil Boubakeur, demanded a "clarification" from the Vatican of the pope's comments.

"We wish the Church will give us its opinion and clarify its position as soon as possible, so that it will not confuse Islam, which is a religion, and Islamism, which is no longer a religion but a political ideology," said Boubakeur, who heads the French Council of the Muslim Religion (CFCM), an umbrella organization representing many of France's estimated 5 million Muslims.

"We want friendly relations with Christianity," Boubakeur said. "The pontificate of Benedict XVI should reap the fruits of the efforts of John Paul II in inter-religious dialogue and friendship against the dangers that threaten all believers, particularly extremism, radicalism, intolerance and violence."