Is the resounding Auradou-Jegou affair, which stirred up the news in France as in Argentina from July to December, really closed? The woman who accuses the French rugby players Oscar Jegou and Hugo Auradou of rape, during a tour of the XV of France in Argentina this summer, will in any case go to the end of the legal appeals against the abandonment of the proceedings, has just assured his lawyer on Thursday.
On December 10, Argentine justice dismissed the case for the benefit of two 21-year-old French internationals accused of aggravated rape (because it was committed in a meeting) by a woman during an alcoholic evening in Mendoza (north-west of Argentina). Argentina), on the night of July 6 to 7, after a match of the XV of France against the Pumas.
Next step: the Court of Cassation of Mendoza
The plaintiff’s lawyer, Me Natacha Romano, immediately announced her intention to appeal the decision rendered by a judge at the Mendoza judicial center where the case was heard. According to Me Romano, justice has authorized the filing of the appeal, which will take place in the coming days. “My client’s instructions are to exhaust all appeal authorities, to go to the end of the appeals”, up to the highest courts.
The next steps are therefore the Court of Cassation of Mendoza, then the Supreme Court of Mendoza, and finally the National Supreme Court. The lawyer said she was ready to refer, as a last resort, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) established in Costa Rica. The 39-year-old complainant says she was attacked, after a meeting in a nightclub, in the hotel where members of the French rugby team were staying.
“Proofs waiting”
“The act investigated does not constitute an offense,” said the judge who dismissed the case, therefore indicating that there had been no rape. For Me Romano, all evidence “should be fully evaluated”. “We have evidence awaiting production which had even been ordered and, surprisingly, the prosecutor did not want to produce it,” adds the lawyer. It refers to the origin of the bruises that the plaintiff presented and which were confirmed by the courts.
While the players’ defense argued that the complainant suffered from a hematological disease which made her prone to bruising, the woman denies that this is the origin of the marks she presented and attributes them to blows suffered by her alleged attackers. “The fundamental proof was the testimony of the hematologist, who signed the report where he said that he excluded that our client suffered from any illness which justified these atrocious injuries, of which there were fifteen,” maintains Natacha Roman.
She deplores that the report was rejected by the investigating magistrate then by the judge who dismissed the case. Another point motivating the appeal: the refusal to produce an ocular inspection of the room where the alleged events took place, as well as sound tests. “There were repeated contradictions between the witnesses that the defense presented to be able to define whether our client’s cries for help had been heard,” explains the lawyer.
Players ready to file a complaint for defamation?
Regarding the possibility for players to file a civil complaint against their accuser for defamation, Me Romano believes that “they are the defamers”, recalling that the woman’s first and last name have been made public. On the contrary, her client “made the decision to denounce the facts in court and not in front of the cameras”.
This threat of defamation “is nothing more than psychological pressure so that the complainant does not appeal but that will not happen”. Hugo Auradou and Oscar Jegou, whose main lawyer is Rafael Cúneo Libarona, brother of the current Argentine Minister of Justice, Mariano Cúneo Libarona, have always affirmed that the sexual intercourse was consensual.
Our file on the XV of France
They were placed in pre-trial detention then placed under house arrest in Mendoza until the courts released them in mid-August and authorized them to return to France at the beginning of September. Since then, they have played again in the Top 14 with their club Pau and La Rochelle and they are now considered by the FFR as “selectable” with the XV of France.
