Against Ahmed T., 12 years in prison were requested. At the hearing, he emphatically denied the facts. Aged 34, this plumber is on trial alongside 50 other men, including the main accused Dominique Pelicot, in this sprawling Mazan rape trial.
Trying to clear himself during the investigation, Ahmed T. explained that he had acted “like an actor” when he raped Gisèle Pelicot, on the night of June 4 to 5, 2019. The latter had her wrists and ankles tied. When the investigating judge pointed out to him that he was showing on one of the videos a smiling broadly, and seemed pleased with himself, the accused refused to view the images.
This entrepreneur, successful plumber, passionate boxer, married to his “youthful love“and father of three children, until then had a clean record. The psychologist expert described him as “banal neurotic subject“, having tried to distract himself from a life as a couple lived like “unsatisfactory and a source of sexual frustration“.
At the hearing, the accused assured that he had no way of establishing the degree to which the victim had fallen asleep, and he was even irritated by the insistent questions about his intention. “I know what rape is, I'm not going to wait 50 years to rape someone and if I was a rapist, I wouldn't have raped a 57 year old lady like he told me, I would have raped a beautiful…”
Since September 2, 2024, 50 men and the main accused Dominique Pelicot have been tried by the Vaucluse Departmental Criminal Court. All are accused of rape or sexual assault on Gisèle Pelicot, acts orchestrated by her ex-husband who recruited on the site Coco.gg, closed since June 2024.
Around twenty other rapists were counted but they were never identified and therefore did not answer for their actions.
Gisèle Pelicot, symbol of the fight against sexual violence
With courage and dignity, the victim chose to show her face, that the abuse she suffered be exposed, that nothing be spared from public opinion. “Shame must change sides“, she implored at the start of the trial, taking on this very heavy role as a symbol of the fight against sexual violence.
During the hearings, Gisèle Pelicot defined herself as a woman.destroyed“, more “determined to change society“. Since the opening of the trial, several demonstrations against “rape culture” were held throughout France.
There are 50 of them, they are a bit of everyone. They are all accused of rape.
They are between 26 and 73 years old. They have brothers and sisters, neighbors, partners, children. They are a mason, a gardener, a journalist, a precarious worker, a nurse, a soldier, an engineer, a prison guard, a retiree, a firefighter, a municipal councilor… They have no mental pathology and, for the most part, no criminal record. Their lives are both singular and banal.
Accused by accused, find the portraits of the 50 accused of the Mazan rapes
