Marina Mahathir's Hero

A devastating new report summarising Swiss investigations into Tariq Ramadan sets out a series of alleged sexual assaults and contacts with underage girls. The Oxford professor was arrested in France in February on charges of sexual assault, and has since faced allegations in Switzerland of a similar nature. 

A Swiss radio report has revealed authorities in Geneva interrogated around 50 people including former students of the academic at the college des Coudriers and the college of Saussure, where he taught French between 1984 and 2004. The final report disclosed by the French-speaking Radio Lac found that Mr Ramadan “tried to seduce a 14-year-old student with no success, and he managed to have sexual relationships with three other students aged between 15 and 18.” 

It also revealed that Mr Ramadan had sought contact with students outside the premises of the school and that he regularly invited his pupils – both boys and girls – for individual restaurant lunches. One student confessed to having been sexually molested by the scholar in his car. According to multiple teachers and students interviewed in the investigation, Mr Ramadan is described as a charismatic figure who always took initiatives in organizing cultural or social events. Some described having a “fascination” for him. 

But the proximity to students of a man known to be a seductionist raised suspicion among his peers…. Mr Ramadan, a married father of four whose grandfather founded Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, now stands accused of having raped two women in 2009 and 2012, a disabled woman identified in media reports as “Christelle” and feminist activist Henda Ayari…. The 56-year-old Swiss academic, who has been in custody in France since February 2, denied all rape charges and claimed the relationships had been consensual…. 

The final Swiss report has not yet been made available to the media. But Ramadan, we know from what has been revealed, was fiendish in his pursuit of his prey. He “had sought contact with students outside the premises of the school and he regularly invited his pupils – both boys and girls – for individual restaurant lunches.” Will Ramadan now claim that all these women are lying? That they are publicity seekers, as he charged Henda Ayari and “Christelle” with being? 

Clearly none of these Swiss victims seeks publicity; their names have been concealed. Ramadan will claim, as he now does in the cases of Henda Ayari and “Christelle,” that the sex was consensual. The age of consent in Switzerland is 16; at least one of the victims could not, therefore, have consented. His seducing of his students also suggests that they were subject to duress (if they didn’t yield, would they be given bad grades? Refused a recommendation?). 

Did the girls resist, but were overcome by his superior force? Was he violent with them, as he would later be with the French women he assaulted? All this remains unknown until the full report is made available. And what will now happen to Ramadan in Paris? Will this latest report from Geneva cause the French judges who allowed him out on bail to reconsider, and to insist that he be returned to jail? Tariq Ramadan is at long last being properly recognized for what he always was. 

Not a “towering intellect.” Not a “leading scholar of Islam.” Not, as TIME Magazine labelled him in 2004, one of the 100 Most Influential People In the World (he was placed in the category of “Scientists and Thinkers.”). TIME”s paean of praise did, however, get one thing right in its first sentence: “Few observers deny the seductive brilliance of Swiss philosopher and Islamic theoretician Tariq Ramadan, but disagreement over his true agenda is ferocious.”