Geneva: On the third and last day of the controversial Islamic scholar's trial in Geneva on charges of rape and sexual coercion, Tariq Ramadan's attorneys pleaded for the case to be dismissed.
The former Oxford University professor is facing a three-year sentence from the prosecution, with half of that time served behind bars and the other half suspended.
"I'm only looking for one thing, and that's to convince you that Tariq Ramadan is innocent," his attorney Yael Hayat told the Geneva Criminal Court, calling the accusations against his client "crazy."
The 60-year-old is accused of raping a woman in a Geneva hotel room in October 2008 who was a convert to Islam and showed up in court using the alias Brigitte.
Insisting there was no sexual activity between him and Brigitte, Ramadan, a charismatic but divisive figure in European Islam, claims he is the victim of a "trap."
As he argued for the conviction of Ramadan, her attorney condemned the act, calling it "torture and barbarism." On May 24, the judges will issue their ruling.
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Ramadan, who is controversial among secularists because they perceive him as a proponent of political Islam, earned his doctorate from the University of Geneva. His dissertation was on his grandfather, who founded the Muslim Brotherhood movement in Egypt.
He held visiting positions at universities in Qatar and Morocco while serving as a professor of contemporary Islamic studies at the prestigious Oxford University in Britain until November 2017.
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The "Me Too" movement was at its height when rape allegations regarding alleged attacks in France between 2009 and 2016 forced him to take a leave of absence.
