Tariq Ramadan posed too great a threat of committing new offences to be released from custody on medical grounds, according to the leaked notes from a panel of judges assessing his bid to gain parole.
The minutes also record that a proposal from Mr Ramadan’s legal team that he would wear an electronic bracket and reside at a property owned by a Swiss institution in Paris did not adequately guard against the flight risk posed by the Oxford University academic.
According to two French media reports, in RTL and Figaro, the justices also cast doubt on a Multiple Sclerosis (MS) diagnosis, claimed by Mr Ramadan’s supporters who have raised more than 100,000 euros in a short but well organised campaign blitz for his freedom.
Author Henda Ayari claimed that she was sexually assaulted by Mr Ramadan at a congress of the Union of Islamic Organisations of France in 2012. A 40-year-old disabled woman, who is known by the alias “Christelle”, said the professor attacked her in a hotel in Lyon in 2009. Reviewing allegations of "brutal sexual behavior", the judges also agreed to hear from three other witnesses.
A judge had ordered he should be detained ahead of his trial, based on fears that he could potentially flee the country and also to protect the women who had made allegations against him.
But Mr Ramadan was taken to hospital from the jail in Fleury-Mérogis after a doctor made the determination. That decision was reversed on Thursday. Even if he did suffer from MS, the condition was not incompatible with continued detention in prison.
The judges refused bail "to prevent pressure on witnesses or victims" as well as “escape from national territory” and "prevent the renewal" of the alleged offences.
The grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood took a leave of absence from Oxford in November. He denies the charges and claims they are part of a “campaign of lies launched by [his] adversaries”.
Lawyers for Mr Ramadan did not respond to requests for comment from The National. Representatives of one of his accusers expressed relief that the goals of Mr Ramadan’s supporters had been thwarted for the present.
"The justices did not give in to the incessant manoeuvres of Mr Ramadan to make to believe in a supposed conspiracy," Grégoire Leclerc, who works for Ms Ayari, one of the two women, told Figaro.