“I am a rapist, like everyone in this room. “Everyone knew it, they can’t say otherwise,” Pelicot said, referring to the 50 co-accused of the trial.
Pelicot, from 71 years oldis accused of drugging his ex-wife by giving her medication so that she was raped by dozens of strangers between 2011 and 2020.
First statement of the accused
This is the first statement before the court Pelicot since the start of the trial on September 2 and his testimony is crucial for the other 50 defendants, among 26 and 74 years oldface sentences of up to 20 years in prison. Some defendants argue that They did not know that Pelicot was giving him medication to put his wife to sleep and they claim that they thought it was a libertine couplesomething that The victim denied in his first statement before the court.
Gisèle Pelicot “didn’t deserve that”said the main defendant in the trial. “I ask for forgiveness even though this is not acceptable,” he added. Pelicot’s presence in court on Tuesday generated expectation, after the court was will be absent from the process for more than a week due to health problems. His first hearing was scheduled for Tuesday, but he was absent from the trial the day before due to illness, forcing the presiding judge to modify the programme and order several suspensions.
Beginning of the cause
This case, which has horrified France, came to light by chance when her husband, Dominique Pelicot71 years old, was caught in 2020 in a shopping center Filming under the skirts of clients.
The researchers They then found on their computers, hard drives and USB keys, almost 4,000 photos and videos of the victim, visibly unconscious, while dozens of strangers They raped“My world is collapsing, everything is collapsing, everything I built 50 years ago,” he said. Gisele remembering moments through photographs.
In the image, “I am inert, in my bed and they are raping me. These are barbaric scenes.“She told the five judges about the rapes organized by the father of her three children. That same day, the victim refused to watch the videos found by investigators about the surroundings 200 rapes which he suffered, first in the Paris region and then in the south of France, until 2020.
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“They treat me like a rag doll“I wonder how I held out,” she said, estimating that she was “sacrificed on the altar of vice.” With anguish and sadness she added that “the body is warm, not cold, but I’m dead in my bed“.
The statement of the daughter of the main accused
During the trial of her father, Dominique Pelicot, the daughter of the accused testified before a French court and sentenced: “He is one of the biggest sexual criminals of the last 20 years“.
“How can you reconstruct yourself when you know?” asked Caroline Darian, daughter of the main defendant. After learning what happened, Caroline changed her name to that pseudonym to write the book “I stopped calling you dad“.
The woman gave her statement for approximately 20 minutes in the Avignon courtlocated in the south of France. The authorities of this court will carry out the trial against Dominique and 50 other men until December 20, accused of aggravated rape.
In her testimony, Dominique’s daughter also recalled how her life “changed” On November 2, 2020, when he learned of the facts. Her mother, who had just been told by the police that she had been a victim of rape for years, called her to tell her. “My mother told me: ‘I spent most of the day at the police station. Your father drugged me to rape me with strangers. I had to see photos“.
After finding out, Caroline Darian called her brothers and stated that they were Helpless, they cried and did not understand what was happening.. “We are suffering, a pain that I do not wish on anyone,” she said through tears. A day later, on November 3, 2020, the Carpentras police proceeded to explain to the three brothers that “between 30 and 50“men raped Gisele Pelicot for over 10 years.
“We are all Gisèle”
The media-covered process against him has become a symbol of the use of drugs to commit sexual assaulta practice known as chemical submissionand relaunched the debate in France on the question of consent. Shouting “we are all Gisèle”, 10,000 people demonstrated in France over the weekend in support of the main victimwho rejected at the beginning of the trial that it be held behind closed doors.
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Reuters
Source: Ambito
