In 2015, it was the night of Valentine’s Day that Dominique Pelicot chose to organize the rape of his unconscious wife Gisèle by Dominique D., an ex-soldier turned truck driver who came six times in total and he described Wednesday as “his best accomplice».
“The first time (Editor’s note: on the site coco.fr), since closed by the courts), he told me that he was looking for a man for his wife for Valentine’s Day night», Explains from the dock Dominique D., born 45 years ago in the north of France into a family of 16 children, all abandoned by their parents and placed in foster families.
During his custody, in March 2021, he spontaneously mentioned this evening at the Pelicot home in Mazan (Vaucluse), where he had raped Gisèle Pelicot alongside her husband. Exceptionally in this case, where Dominique Pelicot meticulously filmed the rapes of his wife by the dozens of men he invited on the internet, there is no video or photo from that night.
Before the investigators, the forty-year-old also admitted that he knew that Gisèle Pelicot was drugged without her knowledge by her husband, with Temesta, a powerful anxiolytic, and that therefore she was not consenting.
Hair cut very short and black t-shirt, Wednesday, in front of the criminal court of Vaucluse, in Avignon, where he is tried with fifty other defendants, Dominique D. certainly affirms “recognize the material facts, but not the intention» to commit them.
For almost an hour, the president of the court, Roger Arata, then lists the five other visits of Dominique D. to Mazan, from November 2016 to September 2020. Five visits during which the accused and Dominique Pelicot will increase the penetrations of all kinds on Gisèle Pelicot, totally unconscious.
“An ambush”
In a video shot by Dominique Pelicot and shown to the audience, Dominique D. gives a thumbs up in satisfaction, a smile on his face. “I always believed I perceived Mrs. Pelicot’s consent through Mr. Pelicot, it was he who gave it. I shouldn’t have given in to temptation. The first time, we should have said stop and denounced (the facts), not been a coward“, he said.
«He was (my) best accomplice, (…) he wanted to know what she was like, how she would be dressed, we talked a lot about it», Quietly explains Dominique Pelicot, who since the opening of the trial on September 2, has gotten into the habit of charging the other defendants.
Earlier in the day, Gisèle Pelicot’s lawyers had requested the screening of two photos taken in May 2019 on the Ile de Ré, where the Pelicot couple spent vacations with their daughter Caroline and their grandson. Dominique and Gisèle display a radiant smile.
These same holidays, immediately after the departure of the rest of the family, Dominique Pelicot had again organized the rape of his wife, by Mohamed R.. This septuagenarian, questioned at length on Wednesday, also denies any “intention» to commit rape, vehemently claiming to have fallen into a “ambush».
«Why, even during this vacation, this happy time, you can’t help but organize this rape?», asks Dominique Pelicot Me Stéphane Babonneau, one of Gisèle Pelicot’s lawyers, present on the bench of the civil parties.
«Explain it to you, I don’t know», replies Dominique Pelicot, who evokes the “famous B side» of his personality. At the time, he felt “worry, guilt, shame, pleasure too». «All this is mixed“, he admits.
Dominique Pelicot, who risks up to 20 years in prison, like most of his 50 co-defendants, has never explained precisely why he began to drug his wife, rape her and have her raped by strangers, after forty years of marriage.
Gisèle Pelicot, who insisted that this trial be public, has become a symbol of the fight against chemical submission and against violence against women.
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