Gisèle Pelicot, the main victim of the Mazan serial rape trial in the south of France, on Wednesday denounced suspicions against her of possible complicity in the sexual assaults she suffered between 2011 and 2020.
• Also read: Serial rape trial in France: the main accused’s emulator, a “rapist” with a violent childhood
• Also read: Decade of rapes in Mazan: husband admits to being a “rapist” and asks for forgiveness
“Since I arrived in this courtroom, I feel humiliated. They call me an alcoholic, that I get into such a state of drunkenness that I am an accomplice of Mr. Pelicot,” her ex-husband who handed her over to men after drugging her, she stated before the criminal court of Vaucluse, in Avignon.
“It’s so humiliating and degrading to hear this!”
“In the state I was in, I absolutely could not answer anyone. I was in a coma and the videos that we are going to broadcast will be able to attest to that. And the experts were shocked by these videos, and they are men,” she explained.
“Not for a second did I give my consent to Mr. Pelicot or to these men behind it,” recalled this 72-year-old woman who is said to have been the victim of some 200 rapes, 92 of which were committed by 50 co-defendants who have been tried since September 2 alongside her ex-husband, Dominique Pelicot.
“Rape is rape”
“I feel like I’m the culprit and that the 50s behind me are victims” and “because I was a naturist, I’m an exhibitionist? I’m the culprit and they’re the victims. Besides, they should sit in my place…”, she joked.
“It’s disgusting (…) I remind you that I was under chemical influence.” The “50 (accused) behind did not ask themselves the question (of consent)? What are these men, are they degenerates or what? Not at one point did they ask themselves the question!”, she thundered.
“There is no such thing as ‘rape and rape’. Rape is rape,” said Ms Pelicot, referring to the comments of a defence lawyer, Paul-Roger Gontard, who had considered that there was “rape and rape”, seeming to minimise the real intention of some of the accused, many of whom claim to have thought they were taking part in a sexual game by a libertine couple.
“I explained that there was rape in its media and legal meaning. I am sorry that the remarks hurt you, that they shocked you. That was not my intention. My intention was to recall the rules of law,” replied Mr. Gontard.
