Mazan rape trial: words to the accused, deliberations, verdict… how will the last week of this extraordinary trial unfold?

The defendants have their say. The 51 men tried at the Mazan rape trial had one last opportunity to speak, this Monday, December 16. After three and a half months of hearings, this last week will close an extraordinary procedure, which began on September 2 in Avignon, powerful national and international impact.

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Mazan rape trial: the defendants' pleadings are over… why have so many acquittals been requested?

The accused at the bar

From 9 a.m. this Monday, these men aged 27 to 74 each had the opportunity to speak, one last time, to explain the sexual violence inflicted on Gisèle Pelicot, at her marital home in Mazan ( Vaucluse), from 2011 to 2020.

The first to speak was Dominique Pelicot72 years old, her now ex-husband, the one who drugged her with anxiolytics to rape her and deliver her to dozens of strangers he recruited on the internet.

Then the accused could follow one another in the order in which their cases had been studied by the court, with first Jean-Pierre M., 63 years old, the only one not to be prosecuted for facts about Gisèle Pelicot but for having reproduced the same process of chemical submissionwith Dominique Pelicot, on his own wife.

These speeches, at the bar of the Avignon court for the 32 accused appearing free or from their box for the 18 accused detained (Editor's note: the 51st, on the run, is being tried in absentia), will be made in strictly defined conditions.

The court's deliberations

Once the last words of the accused have been expressed, the court will retire to deliberate, a process “planned to last three days”specified the president of the court Roger Arata on Friday.

In its indictment, on November 25, 26 and 27, the prosecution requested the maximum possible sentence, i.e. 20 years of criminal imprisonment, against Dominique Pelicot, the “conductor” of this decade of rapes against his wife. Then the requisitions were spread out from 10 to 18 years of imprisonment against the 49 accused prosecuted for aggravated rape, four years of prison being requested against the last one, only prosecuted for “touching” Gisèle Pelicot.

The verdict

Will the court follow these requisitions, more severe than the general average of convictions for rape in France, which was 11.1 years in 2022, according to the Ministry of Justice? Or, conversely, will she dare to follow the thirty requests for acquittal formulated by the defense lawyers, according to whom their clients were “manipulated” by the “monster”, the “wolf” or even the “ogre” Dominique Pelicot, and “did not intend” to violate his ex-wife?

The five professional magistrates of the criminal court will then give their verdict, “normally Thursday at 9:30 a.m.“, indicated the president of the court, but, “if we ever needed additional time, we could postpone the delivery of the deliberations to Thursday afternoon or Friday morning”.