Tariq Ramadan has only just now started claiming that he has multiple sclerosis, just a week after he was denied bail on the rape charges he is facing. How convenient that he would suddenly turn out to be too ill to remain behind bars.

It could be that his team’s failure to impugn the accounts of his accusers has led to this claim as a new strategy. But if he is freed, and presumably fitted out with a custom-made prop wheelchair, will he resume his comfortable life of being lauded and financially enriched by the easy non-Muslim marks who gave him professorships and lecture opportunities all over the West so that he could feed them his smooth deceptions, so skillfully designed to keep them ignorant and complacent about the jihad threat? Or will they, in this #MeToo age, shun the accused rapist despite his latest and — if concocted — most cynical claim yet to coveted victim status?

“Tariq Ramadan is hospitalised in France,” Middle East Eye, February 17, 2018:

Prominent Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan, who was remanded in custody in France on rape charges earlier in the month, has been hospitalised for treatment of multiple sclerosis, his support group said on Saturday.

The 55-year-old Oxford University professor, who will now undergo an independent medical evaluation to determine if he is to remain in jail before trial, was sent to hospital on Friday night, a source close the case confirmed.

“His state of health is getting worse, particularly since the judges refused to issue a visit permit to his wife and children yesterday,” a person close to Ramadan said on Saturday.

His lawyers said that their client’s condition was “not compatible with detention”, based on an initial medical examination on Tuesday.

Ramadan has written widely on the topic of European Muslims, often encouraging Muslims in the West to take pride in their identity as being European and Muslim and to adopt the culture of their respective countries without reservation, unless specific aspects clearly clash with the teachings of Islam.

He is an author whose books include Islam and the Arab Awakening (2011) and What is a Western/Muslim Individual Today (2015).

Charged with rape and rape of a vulnerable person, Ramadan had been held at the Fleury-Merogis prison near Paris since 2 February.

A court ordered Ramadan be detained ahead of his trial, saying he was a possible flight risk and fearing potential pressure on women who testified anonymously.

The Islamic scholar suffers from multiple sclerosis and has appealed against the French authorities’ decision to keep him in custody, website Swissinfo.ch reported.

A Paris appeals court ordered the medical evaluation on Thursday and postponed its ruling on his detention until 22 February, after Ramadan was taken to the hearing in an ambulance.

The arrest of the influential academic – a regular on TV debates with more than two million Facebook followers – has rocked the French Muslim community….

The married father of four has rejected the accusations, saying he is the victim of a smear campaign.