“I heard: ‘I was remote-controlled’, I heard: ‘I drank a glass of water, I was drugged’. But when did they not hit?” is rebellious Ms. Pelicot, 71 years old, who has become a true feminist icon since the start of the debates, on September 2, before the Vaucluse criminal court in Avignon, by refusing the closed session.
“They raped! I hear this gentleman saying ‘a finger is not rape’. Ask questions!” she snapped.
At the “orders” of a “demon”
The last of the 51 accused to take the stand Tuesday morning, just before she took the floor, Philippe L., 62, had adopted this same line of defense, assuring that he was “under the orders” of Dominique Pelicot, a “demon”, and that that night in June 2018 he believed he was participating in the scenario of a libertine couple where the woman pretended to be sleeping.
Prosecuted for “aggravated rape”, this sixty-year-old living from light gardening work faces 20 years of criminal imprisonment, like most of the 50 other accused, 50 men aged 26 to 74.
Manhandled by several defense lawyers, some going so far as to accuse her of having consented, Ms. Pelicot defended herself from having been “under the influence” or “manipulated” during their 50 years of life together with her husband. : “Absolutely nothing caught my attention!”
“You are tormenting Madame Pelicot,” castigated one of her two counsels, Me Stéphane Babonneau, in the face of insistent questions from Me Nadia El Bouroumi.
Mazan rape trial: Dominique Pelicot accused by two co-accused of having drugged them
“I will never forgive,” assured Ms. Pelicot in any case: “Mr. Pelicot had many fantasies, all of which I could not satisfy. (…) As I did not want to go to a swingers club, he is said to have found the solution by falling asleep! I lost 10 years of my life that I will never get back! This scar will never heal!” she said, holding back with difficulty. his anger.
Pelicot’s explanations?
An anger that she also maintains against the co-defendants, who “at no time went to denounce” the facts: “They came to satisfy their sexual urges and, only afterwards, said to themselves that something was wrong in this room “.
And if “certain men could have been manipulated by Mr. Pelicot”, on the site coco.fr (Editor’s note: now banned and closed) where they all found themselves, “when we take action, there is no longer any question manipulation”: “For me, they all came to rape me, that makes no distinction between them”.
“Some apologize to me, and I can look them in the eye more. But they all committed a crime,” she accused: “All my life I will have to live with this. That men have made me soiled, I will have to live with that, all my life All my life,” she concluded, specifying that she was also waiting for “explanations” from her ex-husband.
He was to be questioned one last time on Tuesday afternoon, with the aim, according to Me Béatrice Zavarro, for his client to finally really explain the reasons for this drift which had accelerated over the years, with some 200 rapes in total, half by himself.
“We cannot leave this hearing without having a tangible explanation from him, at least for the respect he owes to his wife,” she assured during a recess of the hearing.
On Wednesday, the trial will then enter its final phase, that of the pleadings, with the civil parties first. Then, from Monday, after a two-day suspension, there will be the indictment of the public prosecutor, scheduled for three days, and finally the defense, over nearly three weeks.
The verdict is expected on December 20 at the latest.
