The grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood received 18 years in prison in absentia for three rapes

The Paris Criminal Court sentenced 63-year-old Tariq Ramadan, the grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder and ideologist Hassan al-Banna, in absentia to 18 years in prison for raping three women between 2009 and 2016.

The sentence comes with an international arrest warrant for Ramadan, who is in Switzerland, and a lifetime ban on entering France after serving his sentence.

Ramadan’s lawyers left the courtroom, saying that Ramadan was unable to attend the trial due to hospitalization in Geneva due to an exacerbation of multiple sclerosis. However, two forensic experts stated that his health was stable and fit to participate in the trial, after which Judge Goetzmann decided to continue the hearings without the defendant.

Since Switzerland does not extradite its citizens to foreign countries, the question of execution of the sentence remains open.

This is Ramadan’s second conviction for rape. In August 2024, the Cantonal Court of Geneva convicted Ramadan of rape and sentenced him to three years in prison, suspended for one year. In the summer of 2025, the Swiss Federal Court rejected Ramadan’s appeal against this verdict.

Since late 2017, when allegations of sexual misconduct became public, Ramadan has been on leave from his position as professor of modern Islamic studies at Oxford University. Ramadan himself invariably denies all accusations and calls himself “the Dreyfus of our time,” accusing the French authorities of Islamophobia.