Oscar Jegou and Hugo Auradou believed they saw the end of the legal tunnel with the decision on Tuesday of the Argentine courts to abandon the prosecution for aggravated rape of which they are accused by an Argentine woman they met in a nightclub, but his lawyer announced a few hours later Tuesday her intention to appeal. Judge Eleonora Arenas of the Mendoza judicial center where the case is being heard, had delivered its decision of dismissal on Tuesday morningbelieving that “the act investigated does not constitute an offense“, therefore there had been no rape.
But the defense of the plaintiff, who had withdrawn from the Mendoza judicial center without making a statement, later announced its decision to appeal. The file will be sent to another instance. Me Natacha Romano has always maintained that her client had been the victim of a “violence terrible“. She has repeatedly accused the Mendoza justice system of “bias”, and tried to have the two prosecutors in charge of the investigation, then Judge Arenas, recused.
Oscar Jegou and Hugo Auradou, both aged 21, are being prosecuted for aggravated rapecommitted to a meeting, on the night of July 6 to 7 in a hotel in Mendoza where the XV of France came to play against Argentina. The two players have affirmed from the beginning that the sexual relations with the complainant, a 39-year-old Argentinian, were consensual, and without violence. Early in the case, the prosecution had noted “notable contradictions, inconsistencies, gray areas” in the complainant’s account. This is why the Public Prosecutor’s Office had pleaded for the prosecution to be dropped at the beginning of October following the investigation.
Senegal
