In an indictment “looking towards the future”, the prosecution hoped on Wednesday that the future verdict of the Mazan rape trial would constitute “a message of hope” for victims of sexual violence, with Dominique Pelicot’s lawyer trying to to bring out one’s “humanity”
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“By your verdict, you will mean that ordinary rape does not exist, that accidental or involuntary rape does not exist. You will deliver a message of hope to victims of sexual violence,” insisted Laure Chabaud, one of the two representatives of the public prosecutor, while addressing the Vaucluse criminal court.
“You will return a part of her humanity stolen from Gisèle Pelicot,” she added, facing the septuagenarian, who has become an icon of the feminist cause since her decision to refuse the closed session during this trial, which began on September 2, in Avignon.
For ten years, from July 2011 to October 2020, she had been drugged without her knowledge by her now ex-husband, Dominique Pelicot, who raped her and handed her over to dozens of men recruited on the internet.
“By your verdict, you will mean to the women of this country that there is no inevitability to suffer, and to the men of this country no inevitability to act. You will guide us in the education of our sons, because it is through education that change will be driven,” she added, calling for “collective, societal awareness.”
“No magic formula”
“There will be a before and an after” trial of the Mazan rapes, in any case hoped the magistrate, hoping that the sentences which will be pronounced during the verdict, scheduled for December 20 at the latest, will lead the accused to “a decision of real and deep awareness” of their actions, “particularly on the notion of consent”.
Mme Chabaud, on the other hand, regretted “the disturbing communion” which “sometimes emerged” between the accused, during these 12 weeks of debates, “leading to an inappropriate relaxation”.
Likewise, she castigated the “magic formula” of several accused, who repeated “not having had the intention” of raping Gisèle Pelicot, “to eliminate their responsibility”: “Know, gentlemen, that magic formulas do not “do not work in the courts,” she asserted.
This speech concluded three days of requisitions carried out at full speed against the 50 co-defendants of Dominique Pelicot, against whom the prosecution demanded between 4 and 18 years in prison. For Dominique Pelicot, who turned 72 this Wednesday, the maximum sentence of 20 years of imprisonment was requested on Monday.
“Seventeen years of criminal imprisonment, we are only three years away from Dominique Pelicot, when in reality, he is only concerned for a few minutes in the life of Dominique Pelicot. It’s a total disproportion,” protested to the press Me Roland Marmillot, the lawyer for Mohamed R., one of the 50 co-accused, aged 26 to 74.
“Justice is not revenge,” he accused.
Dominique Pelicot’s lawyer, Béatrice Zavarro, then spoke early in the afternoon, inaugurating a little more than two weeks devoted to defense pleadings.
“Devil’s Advocate”
“In spite of myself, I have become the devil’s advocate (…) As I have often told you, it’s you and me against the whole world,” said Me Zavarro, turning first to his client, in the dock, then to Gisèle Pelicot, on the civil parties’ bench, to express his “deep respect”.
For an hour, the lawyer focused on recalling the A side of the main accused, that of the “good husband, good father, good grandfather” described by everyone, then she tried to look into a family history with a “climate deleterious” the reasons for his “perversity”.
Implying that the arrest of Dominique Pelicot, on September 12, 2020, while he was filming under the skirts of customers in a shopping center, in Carpentras (Vaucluse), would in fact be a failed act which would have allowed him to put end to the perverse “gear” in which he was caught, Me Zavarro also recalled that he never threatened his accomplices, or was violent towards them.
“Dominique Pelicot accepted, recognized the prejudice with which he is accused,” recalled the lawyer, firmly refuting this role of “conductor” attributed to him by many of his co-defendants, claiming to have been under his “influence”, even drugged by him.
Regarding the sentence requested by the prosecution, 20 years of criminal imprisonment, the maximum possible for aggravated rape, the lawyer only asked the court to “move away somewhat, perhaps”, without insisting.
And it was in front of Gisèle Pelicot that she finished her plea: “He tried 1000 times to ask for forgiveness, I don’t know if you will hear it, Madam, but he repeats it again”.
Then, referring to the couple’s three children, present during the indictment against their father on Monday, but absent for his defense, Me Zavarro asked them to “keep in mind the first Dominic, the one who pampered you, cuddled you, loved you deeply.”
