From suspicions of incest to unidentified attackers, the gray areas of the Mazan rape trial – Libération

In three months of overloaded hearings, the court was unable to focus on the accusations of incest by the family circle, nor on the men suspected of having raped Gisèle Pelicot whom the justice system was never able to identify. .

In three months of trial, Dominique Pelicot ultimately only told the court what he had decided to say. Or at least what he could not deny, confronted with the written and filmed evidence discovered in his phones upon his arrest, in October 2020. By not requesting the closed session, Gisèle Pelicot wanted to sign the end of the omerta around sexual violence. If her ex-husband assures to play total transparency in court – “I prefer the truth to lies”he said during his last hearing at the end of November -, and proved to be very verbose when it came to the 50 accused appearing alongside him, the 72-year-old retiree was also evasive, even silent, when the murky areas of the case were discussed at the hearing, despite the insistence of the civil parties. Did he abuse other members of his family? When were the first rapes against Gisèle Pelicot? And, beyond the men tried with him, how many others escaped justice? So many questions to which the trial was unable to answer.

“The only difference between Gisèle and me is tangible and implacable evidence”

During his last speech, at the bar, on November 18,