Oxford scholar Tariq Ramadan gets bail in France rape case
The Swiss academic has been accused of rape by two women. He urged a Paris court to rule based on conscience, not because he was "demonised" in France.
In this file photo taken on March 4, 2012 Swiss Muslim intellectual and professor Tariq Ramadan speaks during a conference on "Muslims of France and the electoral speculation" in Nanterre in the western suburbs of Paris.
Tariq Ramadan, a leading Islamic scholar held in France since February on charges he raped two women, won conditional release on Thursday after testifying in an appeals court.
A Paris court ruled in favour of Ramadan after the 56-year-old Swiss academic made, who has been in custody since February 2, an impassioned argument for release.
His bail was set at $340,000 (300,000 euros) and requires him to hand over his passport and report to police once a week.
"Where would I flee to?" he asked in his hearing, his first public appearance since his incarceration.
Charges denied
Ramadan denies charges he raped the women in 2009 and 2012.
One accuser is a disabled woman identified in media reports as "Christelle" and the other is feminist activist Henda Ayari.
But last month Ramadan was forced to drop assertions he had no sexual contact at all with the women after an expert recovered 399 text messages between him and "Christelle", some of which detailed violent sexual fantasies. Ramadan subsequently said the sexual contact was "consensual".
In court, Ramadan said he had no intention of becoming a fugitive from justice, and said his multiple sclerosis meant he had difficulty walking after 10 months locked up.
"I will remain in France and defend my honour and my innocence," the well-known TV commentator told the judges in what was his fourth bid to secure his freedom.
"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," he said.
He portrayed his accusers as liers bending media attention in the case to their benefit, asking: "Who has instrumentalised the Me Too movement?
"I have never raped, I am not a rapist. It's true that I made a mistake," he said.
But Ayari's lawyer Francis Szpiner said the two "women were regularly threatened."
Ramadan, a married father of four 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 Me Too movement late last year.
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