The main accused of the serial rapes committed against Gisèle Pélicot, who faces 20 years in prison for having raped and had his ex-wife raped by strangers recruited on the internet in the south of France, presented final apology to his family on Monday, before the verdict expected on Thursday or Friday.
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“I would like to start by saluting the courage of my ex-wife,” declared Dominique Pélicot, 72, for his last speech before the criminal court which is trying him for aggravated rape since September 2 in Avignon, and which is then withdrawn to deliberate.
“We will therefore go to the deliberations chamber and will only come out when we have made our decision,” announced the president of the court, Roger Arata. The verdict must be delivered Thursday at 9:30 a.m. (8:30 a.m. GMT), but this “theoretical” date could be postponed to Thursday afternoon or Friday morning depending “on the duration of our deliberations,” added the magistrate.
For the 32 accused who appear free and for whom there is a risk of flight, Mr. Arata explained that “they are required to remain available and present themselves on Thursday, December 19 at 9 a.m.”.
Having become a feminist icon, Gisèle Pelicot, 72, had accepted, contrary to custom in rape cases, that the trial be public so that “shame changes sides”.
Alone on the civil parties’ bench on Monday, she was warmly applauded as she left the room and received with “well done” and “thank you” by the public who came to attend the hearings in an adjoining broadcast room.
“I ask her, and the rest of my family, to kindly accept my apologies,” declared Dominique Pelicot: “I regret what I did, to cause suffering for four years (Editor’s note, the date of the revelation of the facts , in 2020), I ask them for forgiveness.”
Sitting in the glass box with 17 other detained defendants, he reaffirmed having told “the total truth” during the 14 weeks of debates.
“Inner shame”
“I can tell all my family that I love them. There you have the rest of my life in your hands,” he concluded towards the five professional magistrates of the court.
He also had a word for his lawyer, Me Béatrice Zavarro, who allowed him not to “let go of the ramp”. Otherwise, “it would have been proof of cowardice towards my people and made it easier for the accused to agree with them. So I held on.”
On November 25, the public prosecutor requested the maximum possible sentence against him, i.e. 20 years of criminal imprisonment.
A sentence expected, even desired by the septuagenarian, who has always recognized his responsibility and remains implicated in two other cases in the Paris region: a murder with rape in 1991 which he denies and an attempted rape in 1999 which he admits after being confused by his DNA.
Most of his 50 co-defendants are being prosecuted for aggravated rape. The prosecution requested 10 to 18 years of imprisonment against 49 of them, prosecuted for aggravated rape, four years of prison being requested against the last, only prosecuted for “touching” Gisèle Pelicot.
Some of these men aged 26 to 74, firefighter, nurse, journalist, prison guard, truck driver, etc., and some in couples, were mostly from towns and villages in Provence where the Pélicot couple had moved.
Some claimed to have thought they were participating in a sexual game by a libertine couple and that Gisèle Pélicot consented.
An argument refuted by Dominique Pélicot, who appeared at the trial as a two-faced man, a rapist at night but a caring grandfather and considered “a great guy” by his ex-wife until she discovered fall 2020 the facts alleged against the man she married in 1971.
Today “I rather intend to make myself forgotten”, also affirmed Dominique Pélicot, claiming to feel “an inner shame”.
After Mr. Pelicot, all the other accused took to the microphone. Half added nothing.
Others expressed regrets, or tried to explain themselves: “I will regret my actions all my life” (Mathieu D., 62 years old), “I am accused of not being empathetic, of being a monster” (Redouan F., 55 years old).
“I apologize to Ms. Pelicot, I regret and I ask her forgiveness,” declared Romain V., 63, one of the four accused to have responded six times to the invitation launched on the site coco.fr, today closed by the courts.
Another accused who went to the Pelicot marital home six times, Jérôme V., 46, declared that, “whatever the sentence”, he will not appeal, “out of respect for the victim, so as not to that she must relive a new trial.
