Two lawyers for the Islamologist Tariq Ramadan, accused of rape, are accused of having previously offered their services to the complainants.
While he had appointed in early May a new team of criminal lawyers, including the founder of Sherpa association, MeWilliam Bourdon, the Swiss preacher Tariq Ramadan, indicted for rapes, should he change lawyers? The Bâtonniers of Paris and Bobigny (Seine-Saint-Denis) were seized for possible breaches of ethics. Their answers could intervene quickly, “at the end of next week”, indicated on Saturday the second to JDD.
This isThe Obs who revealed Tuesday that MeBourdon and MeOuadie Elhamamouchi had, before representing the interests of Tariq Ramadan, proposed, in November 2017 for the first and end of 2018 for the second, to defend two of the women who accuse him of rape. Enough to raise questions about a possible conflict and trigger an ethical storm in black dresses.
A first piece of advice at the very beginning of the business
“No one can and should not doubt that I accepted to be the lawyer of Tariq Ramadan other than in the respect of my ethical obligations”, defends MeBourdon on his Twitter account. The Parisian lawyer evokes a “brief meeting” in 2017 with Henda Ayari who, he insists, “was never [sa] As for the client, she spoke of “betrayal” on her Facebook account, calling out to the lawyer: “We spent hours discussing the matter at your office ... I confided in you with complete confidence.”
In support of her accusations, she also published a press release dated November 3, 2017 and signed by MesWilliam Bourdon, Grégoire Leclerc and Jonas Haddad, “Henda Ayari’s lawyers”. “I do not dispute the existence of this joint press release, confirms MeHaddad atJDD. No more than the multiple contacts between my client and MeBourdon in November 2017. “
Henda Ayari also kept a “memo on the future actions of Bourdon & associés” dated November 2, 2017. We are therefore at the very beginning of the affair. Henda Ayari’s rape complaint, the first against Tariq Ramadan, was only made two weeks earlier, on October 20. These six pages, which theJDD was able to consult, constitute a real proposal for services from the Bourdon cabinet with several areas of work: criminal procedure, negotiation of a new publishing contract for a book, establishment of media monitoring, possible request for protection police, definition of a communication strategy entrusted to a professional, in particular to respond to the threat of a libel complaint envisaged by Tariq Ramadan.
Complainant inundated with messages on her phone
“We do not produce a six-page memo to a client after a ten-minute meeting,” said on condition of anonymity a Parisian criminal, outraged, who admitted not to carry MeBourdon in his heart. Before adding: “Professional secrecy is not to protect the lawyer but to protect the client who comes to confide in your office.” “This is the example of the complete loss of common sense”, sums up another experienced lawyer who nevertheless defines himself as “one of those who do not hate” William Bourdon.
“I have strictly observed the code of ethics. There is no conflict of interest and I am completely serene,” informed MeOuadie Elhamamouchi of the Bar of Bobigny. However, she is accused of having, from November 13, 2018, flooded with messages the phone of Mounia Rabouj, another accuser of Tariq Ramadan, to convince her to choose him as a defender when a lawyer theoretically does not have the right to request a customer by SMS. And especially to have discussed at length on the file with her before moving on to the enemy eighteen months later.
A passage, in a text of November 20, 2018 from MeElhamamouchi, today draws particular attention. A “tenor of the Paris bar would agree to collaborate with us provided that you are at least the holder of legal aid”? Who would it be? Requested by theJDD, the lawyers of two complainants, MeFrancis Szpiner for Henda Ayari, MeÉric Morain for Mounia Rabbouj, did not wish to react.
