Swiss court convicts Islamic scholar on rape charges

Geneva court overturns acquittal of Tariq Ramadan, hands down three-year sentence.

A Swiss appeals court has convicted Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan of rape and sexual coercion.

The court in Geneva overturned a previous acquittal of the high-profile 62-year-old former professor on charges that he attacked a woman in a hotel in the city in 2008. The decision was dated August 28 but only made public on Tuesday.

The court sentenced Ramadan, grandson of Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt founder Hasan al-Banna, to three years in prison, with two of them suspended.

The scholar has strongly denied the charges against him, which were based on an accusation by an unnamed Swiss woman relating to the incident 16 years ago.

A Muslim convert, identified only as “Brigitte”, the woman had testified he subjected her to rape and other violent sex acts.

Her lawyer said she was repeatedly raped and subjected to “torture and barbarism”.

A lower court finding last year had acquitted Ramadan, citing a lack of evidence and contradictory testimonies.

Ramadan can appeal the new ruling at a federal court.

Fall from grace

Ramadan was a leading figure in European Islam, enjoying the public spotlight in the 2000s as a professor at Oxford University and lecturing across Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Time Magazine named him among the 100 most influential people in the world in 2004.

His fall from grace began when allegations of sexual violence were made in France in 2009.

By 2016, four French women had accused him of rape. The Swiss woman filed her complaint in 2018, saying she felt emboldened to come forward following the other accusations.

Ramadan said he had not carried out “a single act, behaviour or sex act that was not discussed beforehand” with the women.

As the allegations emerged, he put his 12-year professorship in contemporary Islamic studies at the University of Oxford on hold.

His 2018 admission that he had sex outside his decades of marriage, in which he had four children with a French woman, tarnished his image for some religious and community leaders.

Saying he suffers from multiple sclerosis and depression, Ramadan retired early.

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Al Jazeera and news agencies