The judge “did not say” how long she would take to make her decision, the players' lawyer said.
The decision on a possible dismissal of the case for Hugo Auradou and Oscar Jegou, the two French rugby players charged with aggravated rape in Argentina, was put under advisement this Tuesday, November 26, without a date being communicated for the decision, announced the players' lawyer. In legal terms, deliberation is the act of a court reflecting in order to make its decision.
“The judge will decide the result, and will take (the) few days necessary. It's a complicated case,” Rafael Cuneo Libarona, the players' lawyer, told journalists after a second day of hearing in camera. closed at the judicial center of Mendoza (west). The judge “did not say” how long she would take to render her decision, he said.
Plaintiff's lawyer calls for trial
On Monday, the prosecution requested the dismissal of the case, that is to say the abandonment of the proceedings against the players. This Tuesday, it was the turn of Natacha Romano, the lawyer of the plaintiff, a 39-year-old Argentinian, to plead. Me Romano was to assert his opposition to the dismissal of the case and his request that Auradou and Jégou be tried in a trial.
For almost five months, Auradou and Jegou, 21 years old, have remained charged with aggravated rape because they were committed in a meeting, for alleged acts that occurred on the night of July 6 to 7 in a hotel in Mendoza, where the XV of France had just played a test match against Argentina, followed by a “third half”.
Both have affirmed from the beginning that the sexual relations with the complainant, met in a nightclub, were consensual and without violence. The plaintiff's lawyer, however, denounced a rape with “terrible violence”, in a case which saw two radically opposed versions of the facts clash. Apart from a convergence on the reality of sexual acts, and an alcoholic context.
“There was consent”
After Monday's hearing, the players' lawyer Rafael Cuneo Libarona welcomed a “very, very good” presentation by the prosecution in favor of dismissal, at the end of “an extremely productive investigation”. He reaffirmed that “for the defense, there was no type of crime” and that “there was indeed consent from this 40-year-old lady”.
Me Romano, for his part, deplored a hearing during which a victim was “accused of lying”, instead of “evaluating what happened between the four walls” of the hotel room. She said she feared “a complaint for false testimony, a request for reparations” to come against her client, denouncing the offensive “style” of the players' lawyer.
