A disabled woman who claims she was raped by an ex-Oxford professor has accused the Islamic scholar of trying to ‘destroy her life’.
The alleged victim, known by the pseudonym Christelle, is one of two women Tariq Ramadan, 56, is charged with raping.
He was suspended from his post as Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies at St Antony’s College after being charged in France with the rape of the disabled woman in 2009 and a feminist activist in 2012.
Now Christelle, who suffers from a bone condition, has said Ramadan has tried to smear her by writing a book naming her 84 times and ‘hijacking’ her birthday for an event to proclaim his innocence.
In her first interview with the UK media, the alleged victim told The Daily Telegraph Ramadan tried to ‘get dirt’ on her to ‘destroy’ her in revenge for her claim he raped her in a Lyon hotel room.
She said: ‘I did try to commit suicide over it. I’m just out from a serious depression.
‘I’ve put on 30 kilos, but today, I want to do something with my life. I have reopened my company. I want to build up projects. I want to live.
‘And this is just unbearable for me. Unbearable. Each time I try to put the head out of the water to stand up again, each time he campaigns in order to destroy me at a social level, economically and with my friends as well.
‘It’s as if to say, “You belong to me, you’re mine. You’re my object. For life, you’re going to be related to me, you’re going to be in my book”.’
In his book, Ramadan described his alleged victims as ‘all liars’ and ‘women who were jealous or who felt cheated and who looked to settle scores after the facts’.
He also accuses French judges of ‘deep hostility’ towards him.
The second woman he is charged with raping, feminist activist Henda Ayari, went public with her accusation he raped her in a Paris hotel room in 2012.
The case against Ramadan was earlier this year expanded when a woman in her 50s claimed he and one of his staff raped her when she went to interview the academic at a hotel in Lyon in May 2014.
The accuser, who filed a criminal complaint in May 2019, also accused Ramadan of issuing ‘threats or acts of intimidation’ to dissuade her from reporting the alleged attack to the police, French judicial sources said.
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 rape allegations surfaced at the height of the ‘Me Too’ movement in late 2017.
He was previously one of British Foreign Office’s Advisory Group on Freedom of Religion or Belief.
The scholar, who has multiple sclerosis, has denied charges he raped a disabled woman in 2009 and a feminist activist in 2012.
He was taken into custody in February 2018 and held for nine months before being granted bail.
Authorities in Switzerland are also investigating him after receiving a rape complaint in that country.
Prosecutors in Geneva opened a rape and sexual misconduct investigation against the professor.
His lawyer, Emmanuel Marsigny, refused to comment on Sunday on the latest allegations against him in France.
But Ramadan has been adamant from the outset that all the allegations are politically or ideologically motivated.
The woman behind the latest complaint told police Ramadan and a male assistant repeatedly raped her in the professor’s room at the Sofitel hotel in Lyon.
She described the alleged attack as being of ‘untold violence’ and claimed when she threatened to report them to the police Ramadan replied: ‘You don’t know how powerful I am.’
She also claimed Ramadan had contacted her via the Messenger app in January, two months after his release from jail, saying that he wanted to make her an ‘offer’ of a ‘professional nature’, without giving details.
A spokesman for Oxford University, from where Ramadan was asked to take a leave of absence, said the former professor has ‘categorically denied’ the allegations.
It added: ‘The university has consistently acknowledged the gravity of the allegations against Professor Ramadan, while emphasising the importance of fairness and the principles of justice and due process.
‘An agreed leave of absence implies no presumption or acceptance of guilt and allows Professor Ramadan to address the extremely serious allegations against him.’
