Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan gets 18 years for rape

A Paris court has sentenced in absentia Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan for the rape of three women between 2009 and 2016.

The verdict marks one of the most high-profile cases linked to the "Me Too" movement.

A Paris court has sentenced in absentia Swiss Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan to 18 years in prison for the rape of three women.

On Wednesday evening, the former Oxford University professor was found guilty of all three counts that took place between 2009 and 2016, marking his latest fall from grace.

Ramadan has continuously denied the allegations brought to the French court but later admitted to having had contact with the women.

What do we know about the ruling against Ramadan?

An arrest warrant for the 63-year-old has been issued, said presiding Judge Corinne Goetzmann, as the sentence cannot be enforced until Ramadan is arrested in France.

The court also banned the scholar from setting foot on French territory again following the end of his sentence.

However, since Switzerland does not extradite its citizens to other countries, it is unclear how the well-known academic will be brought to justice.

In 2024, Ramadan was convicted in a separate case of rape and sexual assault in Switzerland .

The following year, the Swiss supreme court rejected Ramadan's appeal against the ruling.

It upheld the sentence of three years in prison, two of which were suspended.

He did not appear at the Paris trial in person this month, with his lawyers citing a "flare-up" of multiple sclerosis requiring hospitalization in Geneva, Switzerland, as the reason for his absence.

However, this claim was rejected by a court-ordered medical assessment.

Before the sexual assault allegations surfaced during the height of the "Me Too" movement, Ramadan was a professor of contemporary Islamic studies at Oxford with visiting roles at universities in Qatar and Morocco.

He is a grandson of Hassan al-Banna, who co-founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the 1920s.

Critics accuse the scholar of advocating for a particularly conservative and political interpretation of Islam .

He denies any affiliation with extremist Islamic movements.