No, Ramadan was not giving a lecture in the United States the day he is accused of rape in Lyon

AFP, published on Friday 06 September 2019 at 15:40

Swiss Islamologist Tariq Ramadan said on Friday that he did not know the woman who accused him of rape at a meeting in Lyon on May 23, 2014, and assured that he had given a date to a conference in the United States. This conference started the next day.

What we check

The 57-year-old Muslim intellectual, already indicted in France for two rapes he is challenging and under investigation for the charges of a third woman, is targeted this summer by a fourth complaint, this time for "meeting rape".

In this complaint filed on July 12, a woman accuses Tariq Ramadan and one of her friends of having raped her on May 23, 2014, in a hotel in Lyon where she was to interview him.

"On May 23, 2014, I'm giving a conference in Baltimore in front of 10,000 people," Ramadan told RMC / BFMTV on Friday. "Except for having the gift of ubiquity (…), I was not there," said Ramadan.

What we know

Tariq Ramadan has given several lectures in Baltimore, a US city located near the capital Washington, but between May 24 and May 26, dates of the 39th annual convention of ICNA-MAS, an Islamic organization present in North America (1).

According to the program found by AFP (2), Mr. Ramadan intervened for the first time on Saturday, May 24 in a session starting from 14:00 local time, 8:00 pm French time.

According to the tweets found by AFP (3), Mr. Ramadan was speaking around 3:15 pm local time (9:15 pm French time), in front of a few hundred people.

Mr. Ramadan then gave at least one more conference, probably on Sunday, May 26 (4) before a wider panel that could correspond to the "10,000 people" mentioned.

After the interview on RMC / BFMTV, the entourage of the Islamologist has told AFP that he actually left London on May 23, 2014 at 16:35 (local time) to arrive at 19H55 in Baltimore .

What can we conclude

The conference evoked by Mr. Ramadan to justify that he was not in Lyon on May 23, 2014, the day he is accused of committing rape in a meeting, actually took place in the following days.

(1) The Facebook page of the ICNA-MAS

(2) The program found by AFP

(3) tweets found by AFP

(4) Conference Video