Will the 51 accused in the Mazan rape trial all go to prison, as the prosecution demanded? Will the judges instead follow the defense lawyers, who have argued for dozens of acquittals? Thursday morning, the Vaucluse criminal court delivers its long-awaited verdict.
After three and a half months of hearing and three days of deliberation, the five magistrates of the criminal court will announce, from 9:30 a.m., the fate that they have decided to reserve for these men aged 27 to 74, from all walks of life. social workers, who came to sexually assault Gisèle Pelicot, previously sedated by her then husband, Dominique, at their home in Mazan (Vaucluse).
Maximum sentence for Dominique Pelicot?
Unless there is a surprise, the main accused, Dominique Pelicot, 72, who admitted to having drugged his wife Gisèle with anxiolytics for a decade to rape her and hand her over to dozens of strangers he recruited on the internet, should receive the sentence. maximum of 20 years in prison requested by the public prosecutor.
>> Read also: Twenty years required against Dominique Pelicot at the Mazan rape trial
The great unknown lies in the sentences his co-defendants will receive, the court necessarily having to individualize its sanctions, and in the acquittal from which some may or may not benefit.
At the end of November, the public prosecutor had requested 10 to 18 years of imprisonment against 49 of them, tried for aggravated rape, and four years of prison against the last one, only prosecuted for “touching” Gisèle Pelicot.
These requisitions are more severe than the average sentence for rape in France, which was 11.1 years in 2022, according to the Ministry of Justice.
The defense lawyers made around thirty requests for acquittal for their clients who, according to them, were “manipulated” by the “monster”, the “wolf” or even the “ogre” Dominique Pelicot.
cab with agencies
World
