Islamic scholar convicted of rape in Switzerland

Tariq Ramadan found guilty of rape by Geneva court, plans to appeal to Switzerland's highest court.

GENEVA:

Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan, who has been convicted of rape by a Geneva appeals court and sentenced to prison, will contest the verdict before Switzerland's highest court, his lawyers said on Tuesday.

After being acquitted last year, a Geneva appeals court said Tuesday it had found the 62-year-old former Oxford University professor "guilty of rape and sexual coercion" of a woman in a Geneva hotel 16 years ago.

It sentenced him to three years in prison, two of them suspended, marking the first guilty verdict against Ramadan, who faces a string of rape allegations in Switzerland and France.

A charismatic yet controversial figure in European Islam, he has always maintained his innocence, and his lawyers immediately announced that he would take the case to Switzerland's highest court.

"It will be up to the Federal Court to rule on this case, to uphold justice and recognise this man's innocence," Yael Hayat and Guerric Canonica said in a statement to AFP.

Lawyers for the plaintiff in the case -- a Muslim convert identified only as "Brigitte" -- said they were relieved "the truth had finally triumphed", insisting they were not worried about the new appeal.

"Our client is of course relieved, considering what she has had to endure for the truth to come out," the woman's lawyers Veronique Fontana and Robert Assael told AFP.

Their client had testified before the court that he subjected her to rape and other violent sex acts in a Geneva hotel room during the night of October 28, 2008.

The lawyer representing Brigitte said she was repeatedly raped and subjected to "torture and barbarism".

Ramadan said Brigitte invited herself up to his room. He let her kiss him, he said, before quickly ending the encounter.

He said he was the victim of a "trap".

Brigitte, who was in her forties at the time of the alleged assault, filed her complaint 10 years later, telling the court she felt emboldened to come forward following similar complaints filed against Ramadan in France.