An unknown looms over the Vaucluse departmental criminal court. Will Dominique Pelicot’s state of health be the deciding factor in the Mazan rape trial? The second week was marked by the main accused’s significant absence for medical reasons. And at this stage, the resumption of the trial on Monday, September 16 seems uncertain.
Me Béatrice Zavarro, Dominique Pelicot’s lawyer, saw her client this Saturday, September 14. The man appeared “in pajamas, feverish, in a state that is not improving,” she explained to BFMTV.
The lawyer, who confirmed that she was contacting the General Inspector of Places of Deprivation of Liberty and the departmental order of doctors, as previously stated to Le Parisien, requested that her client be taken care of “as is appropriate”.
The president of the court spoke of a “catastrophe”
On Thursday, Roger Arata, president of the Vaucluse departmental criminal court, estimated that a prolonged absence of Dominique Pelicot from the Mazan rape trial would be a “catastrophe”. Excused from attending the hearings on Monday and then Tuesday due to intestinal pain, Dominique Pelicot reappeared weakened in the dock on Wednesday morning. He was then exempted from appearing by the court, following a request from his lawyer.
The forensic examination, carried out the same day, concluded that the accused was not fit to appear.
Last week, Dominique Pelicot, accused of drugging his wife Gisèle and handing her over to dozens of strangers to rape her, was due to testify for the first time at the trial. The hearings were maintained despite his absence.
- BFMTV.com
