PARIS, Jan. 31 (Xinhua) -- Tariq Ramadan, a prominent Oxford scholar of Islamic studies, was put into custody on Wednesday by French police on rape charges, local media reported.
The Swiss professor has been heard by Paris judicial police connection and detained as part of a preliminary inquiry into rape allegations.
The probe was opened in October 2017 after two women filed complaints in France for alleged rape.
One was by Henda Ayari, a former salafist who became a secular and feminist militant. Ayari accused Ramadan of raping her in a hotel room in 2012 while she was asking for religious advice.
Another from a 40-year-old unnamed woman, who said the Islamist thinker raped her in 2009.
Ramadan, grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood movement in Egypt Hassan al-Banna, could remain into custody for 48 hours.
The Geneva-born professor denied the allegations that forced him to take a leave from Oxford last November.
