The investigating judge responsible for the investigation into the Mazan rapes was questioned on Friday before the Vaucluse criminal court, notably by several defense lawyers, who tried to highlight possible failings.
Seized in November 2020, Gwenola Journot issued her indictment order in June 2023, a document of nearly 370 pages, for 31 volumes of instruction concerning this sprawling affair involving 51 men, accused of having raped Gisèle for a decade Pelicot, at her marital home in Mazan (Vaucluse), at the invitation of her ex-husband, who put her to sleep with anxiolytics.
For almost two hours, the magistrate answered questions from the court on her choices to investigate certain points but above all to rule out certain avenues.
“On a case of this magnitude, we can easily carry out 10 years of investigation. We wanted to be pragmatic and efficient so that Mr. Pelicot could be judged within a reasonable time.“, she said straight away.
Explanations to give about his investigation
Me Antoine Camus, one of Gisèle Pelicot's lawyers, first asked why the investigation had not tried to deepen the investigations into possible attacks suffered by Caroline Darian, Gisèle Pelicot's daughter. Photomontages of her, naked and sleeping, were in fact found in her father's computer files, and the forty-year-old still wonders if she too would not have been raped by the man she now calls her “progenitor”.
“We know that she was the subject of immodest images. On the two photos (on which Caroline Darian appears) asleep, we did not have an explanation from Mr. Pelicot. This is the only point where we didn't have an explanation. It was denied outright.” said Ms. Journot. Denials that Dominique Pelicot has maintained since the start of the trial, on September 2, in Avignon.
Me Isabelle Crépin-Dehaene, lawyer for two co-accused of Dominique Pelicot, who had requested that the investigating judge be summoned before the court, then questioned her on several points, in particular the reason why she had not investigated the possibility that some co-defendants were also drugged by the husband, described as the “conductor” of these rapes.
The lawyer also underlined the lack of precise information received from the libertine site Coco.fr, through which Dominique Pelicot had entered into contact with the co-defendants, or the non-seizure of a third telephone from Dominique Pelicot, never exploited. “I don't know if you are still in the thesis of Madame Pelicot's complicity”, the judge replied.
“I am not in the thesis of anything at all”, the lawyer immediately interrupted, “I have no accusation against anyone.”
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