{"id":22084,"date":"2018-11-16T11:23:51","date_gmt":"2018-11-16T11:23:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=22084"},"modified":"2018-11-16T11:23:51","modified_gmt":"2018-11-16T11:23:51","slug":"french-court-grants-bail-to-tariq-ramadan-in-sexual-assault-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=22084","title":{"rendered":"French court grants bail to Tariq Ramadan in sexual assault case"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Tariq Ramadan, a p<\/span>rominent Islamic scholar, has been released on bail after being held in detention for nearly 10 months over charges of sexual assault<\/a>, his lawyer said.<\/p>\n

A Paris Court of Appeal\u00a0<\/span>granted the 56-year-old Swiss academic\u00a0bail on Thursday even as the investigation into the case continues.<\/p>\n

“Where would I flee to,” he asked during his hearing, his first public appearance since the arrest in February.<\/span><\/p>\n

His bail was set at 300,000 euros ($340,000) and it requires him to hand over his passport and report to police once a week.<\/p>\n

Ramadan, who is accused of rape<\/a> on two separate counts, has long denied having sexual relations with the plaintiffs.<\/p>\n

One accuser is a disabled woman identified in media reports as Christelle, and the other is a feminist activist, Henda Ayari.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

That changed last month when Ramadan admitted that encounters did take place but that the acts in question were consensual.<\/p>\n

‘I am not a rapist’\u00a0<\/h2>\n

In the court on Thursday, Ramadan said he did not intend to become a fugitive from the law, adding his multiple sclerosis meant he couldn’t walk properly.<\/p>\n

“I will remain in France and defend my honour and my innocence,” he told the judges in what was his fourth bid to secure freedom.<\/p>\n

“I would like you to make your decision from your conscience, not because my name is Tariq Ramadan and I’m demonised in this country.”<\/p>\n

His lawyer Emmanuel Marsigny told Reuters news agency, “<\/span>Ramadan’s release… demonstrated that the rape accusations against him were lies.”<\/p>\n

Ramadan also faces criminal complaints of rape by women in the United States and Switzerland.<\/p>\n

Once hailed as a religious reformer, Ramadan’s career has been brought to a halt since his arrest earlier this year.<\/p>\n

He portrayed his accusers as liars bending media attention in the case to their benefit, asking: “Who has instrumentalised the ‘Me Too’ movement?”<\/p>\n

“I have never raped, I am not a rapist. It’s true that I made a mistake,” he said.<\/p>\n

But Ayari’s lawyer Francis Szpiner said the two “women were regularly threatened”.<\/p>\n

Ramadan, whose grandfather founded Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, was a professor at Oxford University until he was forced to take leave when the rape allegations surfaced at the height of the #MeToo movement late last year.<\/p>\n

His supporters have strenuously rejected the allegations, characterising them as part of a concerted effort to defame the academic.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE:
\n Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tariq Ramadan, a prominent Islamic scholar, has been released on bail after being held in detention for nearly 10 months over charges of sexual assault, his lawyer said. A Paris Court of Appeal\u00a0granted the 56-year-old Swiss academic\u00a0bail on Thursday even as the investigation into the case continues. “Where would I flee to,” he asked during…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":22085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}