The maximum sentence of 20 years of criminal imprisonment was requested Monday against Dominique Pelicot, a septuagenarian who, for a decade, drugged, raped and then had his wife raped by dozens of men recruited on the Internet in the south-east of France .
After eleven weeks of hearings, this trial with international resonance is entering its home stretch.
Before the Vaucluse criminal court, in Avignon (south), the attorney general Jean-François Mayet estimated that the heart of this trial was “male domination over women” and that its challenge was to “fundamentally change the relationships between men and women.”
Before the professional magistrates, the public prosecutor began its indictment with the “conductor” of this decade of rapes, Dominique Pelicot, asking for 20 years of imprisonment, the maximum penalty incurred.
“It’s both a lot and too little. Too little given the seriousness of the acts which were committed and repeated,” insisted Deputy Prosecutor Laure Chabaud.
She underlined the “full and complete” responsibility, according to her, of Mr. Pelicot, the common denominator of the 50 co-defendants recruited on the Internet to whom he had delivered his now ex-wife, previously knocked out with anxiolytics, to their home in Mazan between July 2011 and October 2020.
Dominique Pelicot has never hidden his responsibility, calling himself a “rapist”. “I am guilty of what I did […] I ruined everything, I lost everything. I have to pay,” he said in September.
However, he seemed affected on Monday. “He is dejected,” assured his lawyer, M.e Béatrice Zavarro, during a recess of the hearing.
Concerning Caroline, the couple’s daughter, convinced of having also been the victim of rape or sexual assault at the hands of her father, Laure Chabaud on the other hand estimated that no element had been found allowing her “suffering to find a legal translation.
“Debasement”
Evoking a “personality structured in a perverse way”, Laure Chabaud estimated that Mr. Pelicot, 71, was in “search of his own pleasure” via the “submission, humiliation, even debasement of his wife” .
“The lack of consent could not be ignored by the accused,” insisted Deputy Prosecutor Chabaud. Pulling the rug out from under arguments sometimes put forward by certain defense lawyers since the start of the trial on September 2, she assured that it was “not conceivable that Gisèle Pelicot could have voluntarily ingested these anxiolytics”.
“It’s a lot of emotion,” said Mme Pelicot, victim of some 200 rapes, half of which attributed to her ex-husband, upon entering the courtroom.
Gisèle Pelicot, 71, achieved the status of feminist icon after refusing to allow the trial to take place behind closed doors, “so that the shame changes sides”.
Coincidentally, this indictment begins on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
This affair “will mark a before and an after”, said in this context the French Prime Minister, Michel Barnier, traveling to the Women’s House of the Hôtel-Dieu hospital, in Paris. Chemical submission detection kits will be reimbursed by Health Insurance “in several departments” of the country, on an experimental basis and according to a schedule yet to be defined, he announced.
Against the “disciple” of Dominique Pelicot, Jean-Pierre M., who had reproduced the same process on his own wife, 17 years of criminal imprisonment were requested Monday morning. He is the only accused not to be prosecuted for sexual assault on Gisèle Pelicot, but on his own wife.
No less than 10 years required for rape
Aged 26 to 74, most of the accused are being prosecuted for the same facts, namely aggravated rape of Gisèle Pelicot, and therefore all risk 20 years in prison.
The prosecution set the bar very high in approaching the first co-defendants.
Against Joseph C., 69 years old, the only one prosecuted for “sexual assault in a meeting” and not for rape or attempted rape, the public prosecutor’s office thus requested four years in prison.
Then the requisitions increased, at the rate of a quarter of an hour per accused: 10 years against 11 of them, 11 years against two others, then 12 years against four, 13 years against one.
Requests described as “staggering” and “out of proportion” by certain defense lawyers, who criticized the prosecution during a session suspension for having requested under the influence of “public opinion”.
“A lesson to the whole world”
The feminist collectives put up a banner on Sunday evening in front of the court demanding: “20 years for each” of the accused.
Covered almost worldwide, with 138 accredited media including 57 foreigners, this trial has an impact well beyond French borders.
As the President of the Chilean Chamber of Deputies, Karol Cariola, testified again on Thursday, saluting the “courage and dignity” of Gisèle Pelicot, “an ordinary citizen who gave a lesson to the whole world”.
And this weekend, tens of thousands of people marched throughout France to demand a “start” against violence against women.
Subsequently, on Monday morning, the French government announced the extension of the system allowing women victims of sexual violence to file a complaint in a hospital with an emergency or gynecological department.
After the indictment, the defense will speak until December 13. The verdict is expected on December 20 at the latest.
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