Suspected rape committed by a teacher at a madrassa in Tours, France

A 39-year-old man was charged with rape and sexual harassment in Tours on Wednesday, the 20th of December 2023. The offences reported by nine girls were allegedly committed between 2017 and 2018 while the teacher was teaching at a Koranic school in the Sanitas district.

A report from the department’s education authority in mid-October revealed a series of previously concealed allegations.

According to La Nouvelle République, 39-year-old Ab-Bacar A. was charged and remanded in custody on Wednesday the 20th of December 2023 for rapes and sexual assaults that he allegedly committed in 2017 against girls who were between 8 and 11 years old at the time of the offences. There are said to be nine plaintiffs.

The affair, which at the time was handled behind the closed doors of an Islamic association in Tours without causing a stir, only attracted late interest in a man who used to be a teacher of Arabic language and Quranic studies and taught at a “madrassa” in the Sanitas district of Tours.

In this Koranic teaching centre, Ab-Bacar A. allegedly inflicted finger penetrations, among other things, on two female plaintiffs during visits to the toilet.

Ab-Bacar A. arrived at the prison on Wednesday, the 20th of December 2023, and denied the allegations. Before the magistrate, he denied, among other things, “any intention to harass them” and was “shocked” by the accusations “made against me”.

INFO NR. Tours : soupçons de viols dans une école coranique (lanouvellerepublique.fr)