Islam scholar from Oxford jailed 18 years for rape

Prominent Islam scholar Tariq Ramadan was sentenced by a court in Paris two years after he was jailed for a separate rape in Switzerland.

The 63-year-old did not attend the trial as he was in Geneva being treated for multiple sclerosis, according to his lawyers.

The scholar, who was a senior research fellow at St Antony’s College, has always denied the charges and his lawyers branded the trial a “farce”, the BBC and other national outlets have reported.

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Judge Corinne Goetzmann said the sentencing reflects the “extreme seriousness of the acts” in her verdict.

She also said a warrant had been issued for Ramadam’s arrest in Switzerland, the BBC said.

Switzerland does not have an extradition treaty with France meaning the Swiss authorities have no requirement to send him to France.

French newspaper Le Perisien has reported that Ramadam is also to be banned from French territory once he has served his sentence.

He told the publication after the court ruling: “I will not let this decision stand.”

Born in Switzerland in 1962, Ramadam is the grandson of Hassan al Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Ramadam studied philosophy, literature and social sciences at the University of Geneva and Arabic and Islamic studies for his PhD.

He is a scholarly European Muslim, whose books, grounded in Islam’s textual sources, show him to be a skilled interpreter of Islamic history.

A controversial figure, Ramadan was previously ejected from the United States as an extremist, judged to have provided material support to terrorist organisations.

Some eight Muslim countries have also denied him entry through their borders, including in 2016 Mauritania in Africa and in 2018 Qatar.

He has received global praise for his academic work, including being ranked as one of the 100 most important innovators of the 21st century by Time magazine.

According to St Antony’s College website, Ramadan is the president of the think tank European Muslim Network in Brussels and a member of the International Union of Muslim Scholars.

In 2017, the University of Oxford announced that “by mutual agreement, and with immediate effect” Ramadan had taken “a leave of absence”.

In a past interview with Der Spiegel, he said: “God has established norms and the norm is that a man is meant for a woman and a woman is meant for a man” and that Islam is “very clear” that homosexuality “is not allowed”.