Oh good god.

A French official has admitted knowing Oxford professor Tariq Ramadan was “violent and aggressive” sexually, but denied hearing anything about rape.

Bernard Godard, who was considered the “Monsieur Islam” of the French Ministry of the Interior between 1997 and 2014, was well acquainted with Mr Ramadan, a prominent Islamic scholar and grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

A prominent Islamist scholar, albeit one who disguised himself to some extent as a sophisticated academic and deep thinker – but he’s the guy who refused to condemn stoning out of hand but instead called for a “moratorium” while serious theocrats debated the issue. He’s awful but with a veneer of okayness.

And now there are claims he’s rapey.

When asked whether he had any knowledge of the rape and sexual assault that Mr Ramadan is now being accused of, Mr Godard insisted he had “never heard of rapes” and that he was “stunned”.

“That he had many mistresses, that he consulted sites, that girls were brought to the hotel at the end of his lectures, that he invited them to undress, that some resisted and that he could become violent and aggressive, yes, but I have never heard of rapes, I am stunned,” he told French magazine L’Obs.

Mark that. Mark it well. Let it be seared into your memory. Some resisted and he became violent and aggressive, but Monsieur Islam never heard of rapes. Violence toward resistance, yes, but not rapes. One wonders what exactly he thinks rape is.

Mr Ramadan, who is professor of contemporary Islamic studies at Oxford University, has been accused of rape and sexual assault by three women in the past 10 days.

One of them, French writer Henda Ayari, says Mr Ramadan raped her in a Paris hotel room in 2012. Ms Ayari, 41, who lodged a rape complaint against the 55-year-old Swiss national on October 20, claimed that for Mr Ramadan, “either you wear a veil or you get raped”.

“He choked me so hard that I thought I was going to die,” she told Le Parisien on Monday.

But that’s just violence and aggression, not rape.

The Swiss scholar became at professor at St Anthony’s college, which is part of the prestigious British university, in 2009. His appointment was tinged with controversy given Qatar is a major patron of the establishment, and in 2013, Mr Ramadan was forced to deny that he was using his role to promote the ideas of the emirate.

In an interview with Liberation, he said: “My Oxford Chair is a permanent chair, which Qatar has financed, but whose management is under the exclusive authority of Oxford.”

Give the chair to Taslima Nasreen, instead.