The court of Avignon condemned Dominique Pelicot (72) to 20 years in prison after finding him guilty of aggravated rape by having drugged his wife Gisèle Pelicot for almost a decade and inviting strangers over the Internet to rape her. The other 50 defendants were also sentenced, with sentences of between three and 15 years, less than those recommended by the prosecutor.
Dominique Pelicot was found guilty of all charges against him. The sentence given is the maximum stipulated in French law and all the accused in this historic trial were also found guilty by the court, the vast majority of them for aggravated rape.
Pelicot case: the conviction and what the judges said
Five French judges on Thursday announced their verdicts in a mass rape case that has shocked the world and turned the victim, Gisèle Pelicot, into a symbol of courage and resistance. After the conviction, Dominique Pelicot burst into tears in the courtroom, where this trial that lasted almost four months took place.
The journalist Laura Gozzithe BBC’s special correspondent in Avignon, reported that Gisèle, for her part, leaned her head against one of the court walls while her family processed everything that had happened. “The family doesn’t seem thrilled (not that they would be, anyway, given the circumstances) but, by my calculations, All defendants except Dominique Pelicot received fewer years in prison than prosecutors had requested.“Gozzi reported.
The rest of those convicted received sentences of between three and 15 years in prison. One of them, Jean Pierre Marechalwas convinced by Dominique Pelicot to follow in his footsteps. He suggested drugging and raping his own wife and he was sentenced to 12 years in prison, after the prosecution requested 17 years.
The judge in charge of the case also considered that Dominique Pelicot was not only guilty of the crimes of aggravated rape but also of taking indecent images of his daughter, Caroline, and his daughters-in-law, Aurore and Celine, and of raping Jean Pierre Marechal’s wife.
What is the Pelicot case
For almost a decade, Gisèle Pelicot was drugged by her ex-husband Dominique, who admitted to having raped her and inviting dozens of men she had recruited online to have sex with her in her bed at home, while she was unconscious.
It was she who decided to renounce anonymity and bring this trial to light, making, in her words, “shame change sides,” from the victim to the rapist. Although Dominique Pelicot admitted to the charges against him, most of the other men on trial deny that what they did was rape.
The other convicts, between 27 and 74 years old, are from all professions and social conditions, and the majority come from a 50 km radius of Mazanthe town of the Pelicots. The fact that they are firefighters, security guards and truck drivers has earned them the nickname Monsieur-Tout-Le-Monde (Mr. Anyone).
Although the majority had alleged that, having the consent of their husband, They thought it was a sexual game with a libertine marriage – and, therefore, what they were doing was not rape – the court has rejected these arguments. Those convicted now have 10 days to appeal the ruling against them.
Source: Ambito
