Dominique Pelicot was sentenced Thursday, December 19 to 20 years of criminal imprisonment, with a two-thirds security period. He was found guilty of aggravated rape and of all the crimes and offenses with which he was accused in the context of the so-called Mazan rape trial. This verdict is the maximum sentence incurred by the ex-husband of Gisèle Pelicot, and in accordance with the indictments. Dominique Pelicot will be able to request a sentence adjustment after approximately 13 years of incarceration, specifies The Telegraph.
None of Dominique Pelicot’s 50 co-defendants “aged 21 to 68 years at the time of the facts” remind him Daily Gazette, was acquitted, but some sentences fell short of the indictments, and some were handed down without a committal warrant. “47 men were convicted of rape, two of attempted aggravated rape and two of aggravated sexual assault,” summary The Times. The sentences range from three years in prison, two of which are suspended, to fifteen years in prison, for defendants convicted of rape.
Six defendants were able to walk free from the court because their sentence covers the pre-trial detention already carried out or because it will be directly adjusted. CNN, in the United States, focuses on the verdict pronounced against Jacques C., sentenced for aggravated rape to 5 years in prison (compared to 10 required), three of which were suspended, and walked free from the court. “Some in the court couldn’t help but let out a cry of surprise after his sentence was read,” observes the American news site.
Expectations before the verdict were immense. In the crowd in front of the court in Avignon, reports The Guardian, “while the news of the conviction [de Dominique Pelicot] began to spread, shouts of joy were heard outside the courtroom.” The Times also emphasizes that “in a landmark judgment, the Vaucluse criminal court recognized Dominique Pelicot […] guilty of having taken a photo of his daughter, Caroline Peyronnet, without her knowledge, while she was naked”.
This Thursday, December 19 marks the end of the trial “most important in terms of sexual violence in France for several decades”, assure The World. And “resounding trial” according to the Frankfurter Rundschau. Since its opening on December 2, these are “fifteen weeks during which the hearings of the Vaucluse criminal court will have been followed around the world”, comments The evening.
More information to come.
