“They brutalized me and treated me like a piece of meat”: while the two French rugby players Hugo Auradou and Oscar Jegou, indicted for aggravated rape in Argentina, were authorized to leave the country on Tuesday, the complainant gave her first testimony to a French media outlet.
In an excerpt from a program of Envoyé Spécial published Tuesday, before its full broadcast on September 12 on France 2, the 39-year-old complainant recounted her version of the night of July 6 to 7, when she met Hugo Auradou in a nightclub in Mendoza. “When he asked me to go for a drink at his hotel, I said yes,” she said in voice messages sent to Envoyé Spécial journalists.
She then explained that once she arrived in the hotel room, she asked to leave. But Hugo Auradou allegedly prevented her: “He grabbed my neck. He put me on the bed. He undressed me like a brute. He pulled me out of bed while I was naked and he lifted me by the neck, so much so that I had no more oxygen. I tried to react by slapping him. Instead of stopping him, this slap encouraged him to continue.”
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“I preferred to let it happen after all the blows I received”
According to the complainant, Oscar Jegou then entered the room. After believing that the player was going to help her, she explained that he “abused (her)”. “At that time, I was speechless. I couldn’t scream because my vocal cords were damaged. The blond sexually abused me once. It was without a condom,” she added.
Both players deny any violence and claim that the sexual relations with the complainant were consensual. The players’ lawyers filed a motion last week to dismiss the case, for which a hearing date has not yet been set.
“Everyone asks me today: ‘The door was open, why didn’t you come out?’ I couldn’t go out, because Hugo always stayed around me. I preferred to let him do it after all the blows I received. If that wasn’t the case, I might not be alive today,” the complainant continued before listing her injuries, attaching photos to support her testimony.
According to their lawyer, the authorization to leave Argentina exonerates the two players
Invited on BFMTV this Tuesday evening, the French lawyer of the two players, Me Antoine Vey, affirmed that “the decision which has just been rendered, if we know how to decipher it, exonerates them”. “Since the beginning, the prosecution, which has access to all the elements of the investigation and which truly knows what this investigation has produced – it has produced the mark of the innocence of these two players – first authorized, a month ago, the release in Argentina”, he rewound.
“Other acts had to be carried out. They were carried out,” he recalls. “Today, they are allowed to return to France. In a few days, there will be a decision to drop the charges.”
- RMC Sport
