Islamist academic Tariq Ramadan took a leave of absence on Tuesday from the University of Oxford following multiple rape and sexual misconduct allegations, the British institution said.

“By mutual agreement, and with immediate effect, Tariq Ramadan has taken a leave of absence from the University of Oxford,” it said in a statement.

Ramadan's duties will be reassigned and he will not be present on campus, the university said.

The Swiss-born professor has denied two allegations of rape made by French women, as well as further allegations in Swiss media of sexual misconduct against teenage girls in the 1980s and 1990s.

Oxford said the claims had caused “heightened and understandable distress” and its principal concern remains “the wellbeing of our students and staff”.

“An agreed leave of absence implies no presumption or acceptance of guilt and allows Professor Ramadan to address the extremely serious allegations made against him, all of which he categorically denies,” the university said.

Ramadan has furiously denied the allegations as a “campaign of lies launched by my adversaries” and is battling them in the courts.

Taking a leave of absence will allow him to concentrate on his defense while giving students the space they need, he wrote on Facebook.

Rape allegations
Since the rape allegations, Ramadan had continued to teach at Oxford and was seen “walking and laughing in the hall as if nothing had happened,” one student told the local Cherwell newspaper.

The university’s Middle East Centre held a meeting last week during which faculty members said they intended for Ramadan to continue in his role, the student-run paper wrote on Friday.

Students were reportedly told they could ask a faculty member to be present at any meetings with Ramadan.

The two women who accuse him of rape say they first approached Ramadan to seek the scholar’s religious advice.

Feminist activist Henda Ayari told Le Parisien newspaper she “thought I was going to die” as she was attacked in a hotel Paris in 2012.

A second accuser, a disabled woman who has remained anonymous, has alleged Ramadan beat her while raping her multiple times in a hotel in Lyon in 2009.

A legal source told AFP investigators are looking into the women’s allegations jointly as part of a preliminary probe for rape, sexual assault, violence and death threats.

Ramadan’s lawyers have hit back with charges of witness tampering to demand an investigation into whether the women could have colluded.

source: Alarabiya