Story By: Joseph Golder, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News

Oxford University professor of Islamic Studies Tariq Ramadan is being investigated for two additional rapes on top of the two he is already standing trial for – after investigators reportedly found pictures of them on his computer.

The revelation comes after the 57-year-old Swiss professor was reportedly heard for about five hours by judges yesterday (Thursday 13th February), although he did not mention the new charges upon leaving the courthouse.

Ramadam has been free under supervision since November 2018 and his lawyer Emmanuel Marsigny has been quoted as saying there is a “desire to pursue Tariq Ramadan no matter what against all the evidence.”

However, Ramadan is now reportedly being investigated for the rape of two additional women, in addition to those involving Henda Ayari and “Christelle” (not her real name), who had filed a complaint against him in October 2017.

The two women who are at the source of these new investigation had reportedly not filed a complaint against him before being heard by the judiciary.

Instead, they were reportedly identified by investigators who were reviewing photographs of women found on Ramadan’s computer.

One of them, aged 37, is reported as having told investigators that she had been in a “toxic” relationship with Ramadan, but said sex had been “consensual” on “that Sunday in March 2016” when she saw Ramadan at the Crowne Plaza hotel on Place de la Republique in Paris.

In a room at the hotel, she said she had had a “brutal sexual relationship” with the Islamic Studies professor.

She said: “You are asking me if, in the face of this “violence”, I express disapproval or, on the contrary, satisfaction: I am not saying anything. What turns him on are women who do not want to.”

According to Le Monde, she stayed in touch with him at first, saying she was “very in love with him.”

She added: “It is in a different category than physical rape, it goes beyond, there is control. There is a moral rape. He has such a hold on you that you do whatever he asks of you, we are no longer masters of ourselves. But this physical relationship was agreed. One would need [to invent] another offence for this type of person.”

The other woman Ramadan is charged with raping did not file a complaint. She told police about two encounters, at the end of 2015, during which she claims she was slapped, insulted and forced to submit to violent sexual acts.

She told police at the beginning of 2019: “I didn’t like it but I did what he asked so it would end, I was caught in something that was beyond me.”

After two years of investigations, Ramadan is the object of five complaints in France.

Marsigny has slammed the additional investigation against his client, saying: “He has just been indicted again after the first woman said herself that the relationship had been “consensual” and that the other never complained about their two meetings.”

Psychiatrist Daniel Zagury is expected to determine in the next few weeks how much of a “hold” Ramadan had over his alleged victims.

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