The Vaucluse criminal court heard seven men this Thursday, all accused of having raped Gisèle Pelicot. With the exception of one, the others deny the intention of rape.
Each accused has the particularity of making the previous one appear less dangerous. The seven co-defendants in this Mazan rape trial, who are appearing this week, took turns at the bar or behind the microphone in the accused box to answer for the facts with which they are accused, namely the rapes of Gisèle Pelicot.
It is midday when Redouan E. takes the stand. This accused had already stood out since the start of the trial, standing up, trying to speak. It must be said that this 55-year-old man has things to say. Like many others, he acknowledges the sexual relationship – everything was filmed – but denies the intention of rape. And he came to make it known. Of all the accused heard this Thursday, this man, who came to the Pelicot home in June 2019, is the only one to denounce “the sacred words of Gisèle Pelicot”.
“When I speak, my word has its weight, negligible, Dominique Pelicot, his word has weight, but her word is sacred”, denounces the accused who had requested during the investigation that we investigate the bank accounts of the couple, without us understanding the link with the affair.
Between fear and oblivion
Before this indictment, yet another for Gisèle Pelicot, Redouan E. had mentioned his “fear” of Dominique Pelicot. “When I saw him, I was scared of my life, he was all red, he had a terrifying look, he was directive,” remembers the accused who came for “a friendly meeting”. So once in the room, he says, he does so. “I see a woman lying down in scanty clothing. Did he kill his wife? What will he do? He will implicate me in a murder,” he says vehemently. For him, Gisèle Pelicot is “either asleep or dead”.
Because of this fear, Redouan E. acted as “the good student”, by imposing penetrations and fellatio on Gisèle Pelicot. He speaks of “traumatic amnesia” to describe his condition, without the definition of the term corresponding to what he describes. The accused says he was focused on Dominique Pelicot more than on the inert woman. The man is a private nurse, in Morocco he obtained a diploma as an anesthetist-resuscitator nurse. A qualification which questions the court on its failure to detect the state of unconsciousness of Gisèle Pelicot.
“A human being who pretends to sleep, we cannot distinguish whether he is pretending to sleep or whether he is really asleep. The only way to know is a clinical examination,” he says. with certainty.
And to prove it, “we’ll have to make the seals speak,” he gets annoyed.
The importance of watching videos
This is what the prosecution intends to do on Friday with the viewing of the videos filmed by Dominique Pelicot. The public prosecutor, the civil party’s lawyers and the husband’s lawyer agree that Redouan E. is not someone who is afraid. This is also the case for Jean T. filmed with his thumb in the air abusing Gisèle Pelicot. He came to the Pelicots on September 21, 2018.
He remembers being contacted by Dominique Pelicot on Coco.gg, of having arranged a meeting for the next day, of having made the 2.5 hour drive between Lyon, where he lived, and Mazan. He remembers arriving at the couple’s house, drinking a Coke… then nothing until he found himself back in his vehicle to leave. Thus accusing Dominique Pelicot of having drugged him.
“I don’t see anything in your eyes that could alter your discernment,” says Me Zavarro, the person’s lawyer. Jean T. says he came to practice “threesomes”. “Memories would be good for the truth, to defend myself, there I come across as a liar or an idiot,” he regrets. The president points out to him that the supposed ingestion of an anesthetic product in no way takes away his excitement. Here again he will have to be confronted with the videos.
The Pelicot “fantasy”
Like Jean T., Simone M. acknowledges half-heartedly that Gisèle Pelicot was raped and that “logically”, it is he who rapes her. But “I’m not a rapist,” he brandishes. He is the only one whose face the victim knew. Living in Mazan, Dominique Pelicot had him come to his home under false pretenses to show “how beautiful his wife is” and to finish convincing him to participate in what he calls “a game, a scenario”. “We all have sexual games in our relationship, but not what Mr. Pelicot did with his wife. You don’t do what you want with your wife, you don’t throw her out to waste.” But didn’t he realize that Gisèle Pelicot was sleeping?
“I didn’t try to go further, for me the drugs were part of their fantasy,” he pleads. Thierry Po. joins him. “Grunts, something hoarse, it surprised me, I had the impression that she couldn’t wake up, I said to myself ‘damn they’re going far’.”
And like Simone M., for Thierry Pa, Adrien L., it was their first libertine experience. “I did not leave home telling myself that I was going to commit rape,” maintains Thierry Pa., advancing to justify his lack of memories about his alcoholism and his depressive state in connection with the death of his son in a car accident. the road. He repeats that he did not have this intention. Adrien L. was 23 years old in 2014 when he came to the Pelicots. He also denies the rape even if he says he “no longer remembers the facts exactly”. “I’m not saying I was drugged, but over the years…”
Only one accused admits to the rapes
That leaves Jérôme V. He is the only one to recognize the rapes, he is the only accused this week to have gone to the Pelicots six times. He spoke of his feeling of “abandonment” in the midst of Covid. “It’s surprising that some co-defendants say they cannot be informed, Dominique Pelicot was quite clear in the way he drugs his wife,” assures this 46-year-old man. He evokes “the illegal and immoral nature” of his “ignoble” acts.
If he returns six times, it is not because “rape mode” “suited” him, but because he “could not control his sexuality”. An honesty that stops when Jérôme V. returns to the photos of him sent by Gisèle Pelicot. “I have the impression that it is disguised blackmail, from there I become cowardly,” he agrees, describing his relationship with the husband as “dominant-dominated”. If he has a word for Gisèle Pelicot, Jérôme V. recognizes it: “Luckily Dominique Pelicot did not contact me a seventh time, I don’t know if I would have been able to say no to him.”
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