Dominique Pelicot, the main accused in the Mazan rape trial, prayed to his family on Monday “to accept his apology“, while greeting the “courage” of his ex-wife, Gisèle, whom he had drugged for a decade to rape her and deliver her to dozens of men recruited on the internet.
“I would like to start by saluting the courage of my ex-wife“, declared the septuagenarian before the criminal court of Vaucluse, in his last speech before the verdict expected Thursday in this emblematic trial of sexual violence. “I ask her and the rest of my family to please accept my apologies.“, continued Dominique Pelicot, 72 years old: “I regret what I did, causing suffering for four years (Editor’s note: the date of the revelation of the facts, in 2020), I ask them for forgiveness“.
He also had a word for his lawyer, Me Béatrice Zavarro, who allowed him not to “let go of the ramp“. Otherwise, “it would have been proof of cowardice towards my people and made it easier for the accused to agree with them. So I held on“.
“I have been given titles, I rather intend to make myself forgotten“, he warned, believing he had “an inner shame“: “I have a shell that I created for myself, otherwise we die in prison“.
He explained that “the deprivation of no longer seeing one’s loved ones is worse than the deprivation of liberty“: “I can tell all my family that I love them. There you go, you have the rest of my life in your hands“, he concluded towards the five professional magistrates of the court.
On November 25, the public prosecutor requested the maximum possible sentence against him for aggravated rape, i.e. 20 years of criminal imprisonment. A sentence expected or even desired by the septuagenarian, who has always recognized his responsibility.
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