Prominent Muslim intellectual, Professor Tariq Ramadan, has been sentenced in absentia to 18 years in prison by a French court for the rape of three women.
The Paris Criminal Court said on Wednesday that the “extreme gravity of the acts,” including the rape of a vulnerable person, justified the sentence, which will also see him banned from France at the end of the sentence.
Ramadan, a 63-year-old former professor of Islamic studies at St Antony’s College in Oxford, did not attend the trial in Paris, and he has always denied the charges.
His lawyer, Ouadie Elhamamouchi, said he was being treated in the Swiss city of Geneva for multiple sclerosis and condemned the trial as a “farce.” He said the severity of the sentence reflected a “relentless pursuit” of Ramadan.
The French rape case unfolded in 2017, when two of the three women came forward during the “Me Too” campaign against sexual abuse and harassment.
Presiding judge Corinne Goetzmann said victims described sexual relations that were initially consensual but turned violent, with one saying she experienced “a fear of imminent death” while Ramadan was strangling her during intercourse.
“Consenting to sexuality is not the same as consenting to any sexual act whatsoever,” said Goetzmann, adding that there was no “impossibility of retracting one’s consent”.
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Judge Goetzmann also told the court that a warrant had been issued for Ramadan’s arrest, however Switzerland does not have an extradition treaty with its neighbour.
Leaving court, one of the three women involved in the case, Henda Ayari, told reporters that the judges had believed her, and she spoke of “nine years of suffering and struggle” since she had first come forward to make a complaint.
A “far-right plot”
Tariq Ramadan is the grandson of Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
He gained prominence as a public intellectual in Europe, known for his work on Islamic theology, ethics and the integration of Muslims in Western societies.
He held prominent academic positions, including as a Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford (until 2017), and authored books such as “What I Believe and Islam,” and “The West and the Challenges of Modernity.”
Ramadan, who was convicted in Switzerland in 2023 for raping a woman (three-year suspended sentence), attributes the accusations to a broader conspiracy rooted in anti-Muslim sentiment, implicating French journalist Caroline Fourest, who wrote a 2014 book vilifying him, as well as “far-right” Israeli-French paparazzi Jean-Claude Elfassi.
He alleged that Fourest, whom he called a “racist” and “far-right activist,” collaborated with plaintiffs for “almost 15 years.”
Ramadan also pointed to Elfassi’s reported calls for French Jews to flee a country “infested by Muslims and Arabs” as evidence of his bias.
He framed the ordeal as political: “I am targeted for what I represent, meaning a voice for the voiceless and an active Muslim, and they tried to destroy my reputation.”
In a press conference in Paris on October 1, 2025, Ramadan, 63, accused plaintiffs and detractors of orchestrating a “premeditated” trap driven by Islamophobia, and he urged Muslims globally to “wake up” and reject narratives weaponising sexual assault claims.
