It is a balancing act, carried out with skill since the start of the “Mazan trial” on September 2. Ms. Béatrice Zavarro, 55, a criminal lawyer in Marseille, has refrained from entering into the intra-family tensions that have emerged over the weeks. To point out the deficiency and the responsibility of the doctors, who neither considered nor guessed the chemical submission. Finally, to suggest that the Pelicot children could also have perhaps been more alert.
When they confided their immense guilt to the bar, she remained silent. “It is not up to me to denounce or judge this aspect of the case,” she confides to us. On the facts, she had words that the prosecution could have said: “Sordid, detestable, unforgivable”.
Suddenly, the civil party praised his humanity, his delicacy. Gisèle Pelicot even shook her hand and greeted her regularly. Finally, she also avoided saying, even if she thinks so, that this trial has raised awareness about chemical submission and will change the notion of rape. Complicated indeed to explain that it is thanks to Mr Pelicot. Thus, in the room of lost and electric steps, no one insulted the “devil's advocate”, although she was very recognizable with her red glasses, apart from a guy who looked at her very nastily.
There were also some insulting calls to his office in Marseille: “My secretary hung up and in Avignon, I was always accompanied by Édouard, my companion! “, she jokes.
Because Édouard has an imposing build. It was he who carried around for her the 60,000 sheets of the file that she printed, classified into colored cards: “I work with ink and paper and am not on any network”. Her son read the angry comments for her, but there were just as many favorable ones.
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His arrest had relieved him of a weight. He even thanked the investigators…
Beatrice Zavarro
Far from this media pressure, in the apartment she rented for the week in Avignon, she debriefs after each hearing with her partner over a good glass of white wine. A few restaurants where he was left alone, books for a change of scenery and sentences that came to him, for his pleading, scribbled on loose sheets of paper.
His road map: “That Dominique Pelicot can express his demons and their motivations, especially to his wife. I hear that Gisèle Pelicot comes out of there more peaceful.” Beatrice Zavarro only took the stand when the co-defendants blamed her client, believing they had been under his influence, manipulated if not drugged. In a fairly calm and low voice – so we were listening to her – she reframed them, thanks in particular to the videos which contradicted their statements. Reframed so well that one of the defense attorneys nicknamed her “general counsel.” She replied bluntly: “I defend my client and you defend yours, is that clear? “.
At first his motivations were vague but at the hearing he expressed them, what I wanted: to subdue a rebellious woman
Beatrice Zavarro
In March 2021, Pelicot wrote to him from prison and asked him to defend him. “During our first meeting, I saw a spontaneous, direct, transparent man. His arrest had relieved him of a weight. He even thanked the investigators… His actions increased between 2018 and 2020. It was suffocating him. He would have continued. He told me about his life, the mutual love at first sight with his wife, they were 19 years old, then his swinging fantasies.” She will make a hundred visits to him.
“The first interrogation was very trying. He found himself face to face with “his work”. Everything was flying in his face. Anguished, he cried a lot, out of shame and it was sincere.” As the investigation progresses, Béatrice Zavarro discovers the extent of the case. Arrests are increasing. “At the beginning his motivations were vague but at the hearing he expressed them, what I wanted: to subdue a rebellious woman. Gisèle Pelicot refused to go to swingers clubs. She will say on the stand that her husband found this “parade”.”
The civil parties have difficulty understanding the notion of personalization of the sentence, which reduces the years of security
Beatrice Zavarro
Béatrice Zavarro takes the oath at 26 years old. The somewhat strict, narrow-minded twelve-year-old dreams of being a judge and considers that rapists, murderers and assassins should be screwed in detention, without even television in the cell. In 5th year of law she completed a one-month internship in prison, finding herself in contact with serious criminals. This parricide with an ax, this rape, murder and re-rape. His beliefs are turned upside down. These people need help, care. An internship with Henri Juramy, a Marseille criminal lawyer steeped in humanism, finally convinced her to become a lawyer. Among other things, he defended Gaëtan Zampa, Action Directe, the partner of Mesrine, the shooter of the motorcycle who assassinated MP Yann Piat.
She prepares some of these files for him. Then with Sophie Bottai, another figure of the Marseille bar, the defense in 2001 of Christine Deviers-Joncour, mistress of Minister Roland Dumas. She is being prosecuted for Abuse of Social Assets (Abs) which Me Zavarro transforms into Abuse of sentimental benevolence. Six years later she found herself a civil party, representing the father of young Madison, murdered in 2006 in Eyguières (Bouches-du-Rhône). A less comfortable position than in defense: “The civil parties have difficulty understanding the notion of personalization of the sentence, which reduces the years of security. For them it is often disappointing, because the event we judge is the event of their lives.”
Dominique Pelicot uses cash language, which we took, wrongly I think, for perversity
Beatrice Zavarro
A personalized sentence for Pelicot? Béatrice Zavarro defended the man, not the actions. “The one who cries with shame towards his family, his children and grandchildren. I accompanied this man on his legal journey.” At the very beginning of the trial, she “alone with him in front of the world”. She against everyone, like in 1977 Me Bocquillon and Me Badinter with Patrick Henry, who kidnapped and killed a 7 year old child, son of her parents' friends. “Dominique Pelicot dreaded the first face-to-face meeting with his wife, then he got used to it.”
In his defense, during the investigation and on the stand he confessed, but with so little empathy… He sometimes seemed to be talking about someone else's case. His silences, at moments when he could have humanized himself: heavy. “He uses crude language, which has been taken, wrongly I think, as perversity. Before and during the trial we talked a lot about the form and sometimes I said to him: “We are going to avoid that…”. But he was always aware of the pain he faced. He prepared for it all along.” She will refuse to be Pelicot's “feminine guarantor”. Besides, she says: “I’m a lawyer.” Not a lawyer.
