No rape, it was consensual: Tariq Ramadan

PARIS: Leading Islamic scholar and Oxford University academic Tariq Ramadan has claimed that he had consensual sex with two women after previously denying any physical contact. Dr Ramadan is charged with raping two women in France.

Tariq Ramadan, a well-known TV commentator and columnist, has strongly denied accusations that he raped the women in 2009 and 2012 in hotel rooms as an attempted smear by his opponents. He has stressed that his contact with the two women was mutually agreed and not forced or against their will.

His lawyer Emmanuel Marsigny said the Swiss academic had changed his account of what happened on the basis of text messages that have emerged between him and his two accusers.

The messages "show that the plaintiffs lied and that the sexual encounters were wanted, consensual and even sought again afterwards", Marsigny said. The unearthing of these messages "has allowed him to acknowledge that he had sexual relations" with the women, Marsigny said. Ramadan, accused of raping the women in 2009 and 2012, has been in custody since February 2.

The Swiss academic, a professor of Islamic studies, said he had engaged in "sex games" with two women in France who accuse him of rape, but said the "submissive-dominant" relationships were consensual. After he was charged, Ramdan insisted he had no sexual contact with his two accusers, feminist activist Henda Ayari and a disabled woman known in media reports as "Christelle".

Ramadan was a professor at Oxford University until he was forced to take leave when the rape allegations surfaced at the height of the "Me Too" movement late last year. The married father of four, whose grandfather founded Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood or Ikhwaaanul Muslimoon, has repeatedly sought bail arguing that being in prison is making it difficult to treat his multiple sclerosis.

The courts have so far rejected his requests, ruling that he can receive adequate treatment in the prison hospital at Fresnes in the southern Paris suburbs. Last month a computer expert working on the investigation retrieved 399 text messages between Ramadan and Christelle, whom he is accused of raping in a Lyon hotel room in 2009. The text messages detailed his violent sexual fantasies ahead of the alleged attack. Afterwards, the records show that he wrote to her: "I sensed your unease... apologies for my 'violence'."

Ramadan previously claimed he was involved in a "game of seduction" with Christelle, online and on the telephone. But he said their only face-to-face contact was a drink in the hotel bar, describing her as a "compulsive liar".

Ramadan's lawyers have also provided details of his exchanges with Ayari, whom he is accused of raping in a Paris hotel in 2012. The 56-year-old has also been accused of raping a woman in Switzerland, with a prosecutor due to travel from the neighbouring country to question him.

Ramadan faced one of the accusers, named only as "Christelle", during a 10-hour confrontation on September 18. The woman, an Islam convert who suffers from disabilities arising from a car accident, says Ramadan raped her in October 2009 in a hotel room in Lyon, southeastern France.

Ramadan said he had "relations akin to sex games of the submissive-dominant kind, but always in a consensual and knowing way," his lawyer said. "It has been one year now that Mr Ramadan's defendants have been playing tricks to save his cause. But the truth is that he lied from the beginning of this case by denying he had sexual relations and that it took one year to confess," Jonas Haddad, a lawyer for the other plantiff, Henda Ayari, said.

"Will it take him another year to confess the rest?" he said. Ramadan's lawyer said a series of text messages found in the two women's mobile phones showed the relations were consensual. The grandson of Hasan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, enjoys a substantial following among young Muslims and has challenged French restrictions on wearing veils.