Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan faces two new rape charges in France

From France 24

Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan has been charged with raping two women besides two others he was already facing accusations over, his lawyer told AFP Thursday.

The 57-year-old Ramadan, a Swiss national, was already charged in France with raping a disabled woman in 2009 and a feminist activist in 2012. He denies the charges.

On Thursday, as Ramadan appeared before investigating magistrates in Paris, more charges were added relating to two other women who were identified by investigators from photos found on his computer.

The two women themselves had not originally filed complaints, but both say they were involved in brutal sexual relationships with Ramadan—one from November-December 2015 and the other in March 2016.

“It was something other than physical rape, it went beyond that… there was a moral rape,” one of the women had said in testimony seen by AFP. “He had such a hold on you that you did everything that he demanded. But this relationship was consensual, yes,” she said.

“I asked him to be milder, but he said ‘it is your fault, you deserve it’ and that he needed to be obeyed, which is what I did,” said the other.

Ramadan insists all his relationships have been consensual.