Oxford academic defends Tariq Ramadan amid claims he is being attacked for being a 'prominent Muslim'

An Oxford University academic has defended a colleague accused of sexual assault amid claims he has been smeared because he is a “prominent Muslim”.

Professor Eugene Rogan, the director of Oxford’s Middle East Centre, has come to the defence of the Islamic theologian Tariq Ramadan, who is currently being investigated by French police.

Prof Ramadan, who is the grandson of Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, was last week accused of rape by three women in France, and has since been accused of making sexual advances by four Swiss women.

They include one woman who claims that Ramadan made advances when she was 14 years old, and another who claims she had sexual relations with the Oxford don when she was 15.

Prof Ramadan has strongly denied all the allegations and claimed on Facebook that he was the subject of a “campaign of slander” orchestrated by his “longtime adversaries”....