who are the 51 co-defendants? – Liberation

Tried for more than three months before the Vaucluse Departmental Criminal Court, Dominique Pelicot and 50 men are accused of having raped his ex-wife, Gisèle Pelicot, under chemical submission. Before the verdict scheduled for December 20, “Libération” draws up their profiles.

Their names are Jean-Pierre, Cédric, Romain, Redouane or Thierry. They are aged 27 to 74 and come from all social backgrounds. Since the beginning of September, 51 men have been tried by the Vaucluse departmental criminal court in Avignon for “aggravated rape” – or sexual assault for one of them – on Gisèle Pelicot, as part of the so-called Mazan rape trial. At the head of this sprawling system of sexual violence under chemical submission, her former husband, Dominique Pelicot. For almost a decade, the main accused, now 72 years old, recruited these strangers online to rape his wife, whom he had previously drugged.

Despite the damning videos filmed by Dominique Pelicot, virtually all of the co-defendants denied, during the trial, having wanted to commit rape, claiming that they were unaware that Gisèle Pelicot was under the influence of medication. Many of them claim to have believed they were participating in a consented libertine scenario, and to have been fooled by Dominique Pelicot. Denials brushed aside by the latter, who has constantly repeated, since his arrest in 2020, that all the participants were perfectly informed that Gisèle Pelicot had been drugged beforehand. The prosecution requested twenty years of criminal imprisonment against him, the maximum sentence. Sentences of ten to eighteen years in prison were requested against the other accused – and four years in prison against a last one, prosecuted for sexual assault. As the defense pleadings end this Friday, Liberationwho has been following the trial for three months, draws up the profiles of these men, before the verdict scheduled between December 19 and 20.

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