A decision on a possible dismissal of charges for Hugo Auradou and Oscar Jegou, the two French rugby players charged with aggravated rape in Argentina almost five months ago, was deliberated on Tuesday. The wait should not exceed two to three weeks.
At the end of a second day of hearing behind closed doors at the judicial center of Mendoza (west), the lawyers of the parties indicated to the press that judge Eleonora Arenas, who presided over the proceedings, postponed her decision until further notice. late. They even urged her to “take her time,” they said.
The judge “will decide the result, and will take (the) few days necessary. It's a complicated case,” said Rafael Cuneo Libarona, the players' lawyer. She “did not say” how long she would take to make her decision, he said. “She has to analyze everything. (…) Let her take her time.”
According to a judicial source in Mendoza consulted by AFP, the judge has up to 15 working days to render her decision.
After the presentations on Monday by the prosecution, which requested the dismissal of the case, that is to say the abandonment of the proceedings against the players, then of their lawyers, it was Natacha Romano, lawyer of the plaintiff, an Argentinian from 39 years old, who pleaded Tuesday.
“We requested the total rejection (of the dismissal), arguing above all that there is proof of production (of the crime), and that we must continue to investigate,” Mr. Romano declared to the press at the outcome of the hearing.
Her client “wished to be present (at the hearing) but her state of health did not allow it”, on the basis of psychiatric recommendations, she added. She experiences “a terrible mix of sensations in this affair”, but remains “convinced of its truth”.
Me Romano said he asked the judge “to take all the time necessary”, in particular to “listen in their entirety to the 23 audio messages” appearing in the file, between the complainant and a friend in particular. Some of which had leaked to the press.
– Radically opposed versions –
The players' defense believes that these exchanges, which occurred shortly after the events, betray the existence of consent, which the complainant firmly disputes.
Me Romano said she “had confidence in the assessment” of Judge Arenas, whose recusal she had requested, a request ultimately rejected.
Me Cuneo Libarona for his part estimated that the players' defense had “step by step demonstrated the innocence” of MM. Auradou and Jegou. “This offense did not exist, we have no doubt,” he insisted, because of “the existence of consent”, but also “the quantity of contradictions” of the complainant.
“We must protect women, those who have really been sexually assaulted,” he said. Not a “legal adventure like this case”.
For almost five months, Hugo Auradou and Oscar Jegou, 21, have been 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 was coming. to play 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.
Providing justice “is difficult when one says white and the other says black,” commented Me Cuneo on Tuesday.
Returning to France at the beginning of September after the green light from the Argentine courts – the prosecution then considered that the accusation had “lost its force” -, MM. Auradou and Jegou resumed the course of their professional careers in the Top 14: from October for Auradou with Pau, November for Jegou with La Rochelle. Both played last weekend.
But for a possible return to the French team, the president of the Federation Florian Grill was very clear in affirming that they would not play again “as long as there is no dismissal”.
