Mazan rape trial –
Dominique Pelicot salutes the “courage” of his ex-wife Gisèle
Before the Court retired to deliberate, the main defendant in this historic legal case apologized. The verdict is expected this Thursday.
Published today at 10:30 a.m.
Dominique Pelicot is accused of drugging his wife for nearly ten years and inviting strangers to rape her at their home in Mazan, a small town in the south of France.
AFP/Benoit PEYRUCQ
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Dominique Pelicot, the main accused in the Mazan rape trial, asked his family on Monday to “accept his apologies”, while saluting the “courage” of his ex-wife, Gisèle, whom he had drugged for a decade to rape her and deliver her to dozens of men recruited on the internet.
“I would like to start by saluting the courage of my ex-wife,” declared the septuagenarian before the Vaucluse criminal court, in his last speech before the verdict expected Thursday in this emblematic trial of sexual violence.
“I ask her, and the rest of my family, to kindly accept my apologies,” continued Dominique Pelicot, 72 years old: “I regret what I did, causing suffering for four years (editor’s note: the date of the revelation of the facts, in 2020), I ask them for forgiveness.”
“Nonchalance”
Sitting in the glass box where he appears alongside the 17 other detained defendants, out of 51 in total, he reaffirmed having told “the total truth” since the start of this trial which began on September 2 in Avignon.
He also thanked the court which accepted that he could remain seated on a special chair due to his fragile state of health, which “could have been interpreted as casualness” but which was not, a- he assured.
He also had a word for his lawyer, Me Béatrice Zavarro, who allowed him not to “let go of the ramp”. Otherwise, “it would have been proof of cowardice towards my people and made it easier for the accused to agree with them. So I held on.”
To be forgotten
“I have been given titles, I rather intend to make myself forgotten,” he warned, believing that he had “an inner shame”: “I have a shell that I created for myself, otherwise we die in prison,” continued the man who was described by several lawyers of the co-defendants as “the ogre of Mazan”, a “wolf” who would have trapped their clients by making them believe in the scenario of a libertine couple where the wife would pretend to be asleep.
He explained that “the deprivation of no longer seeing your loved ones is worse than the deprivation of liberty”: “I can tell all my family that I love them. There you have the rest of my life in your hands,” he concluded towards the five professional magistrates of the court.
Maximum sentence required
On November 25, the public prosecutor requested the maximum possible sentence against him for aggravated rape, i.e. 20 years of criminal imprisonment. A sentence expected or even desired by the septuagenarian, who has always recognized his responsibility.
Most of his 50 co-defendants are being prosecuted for aggravated rape. The prosecution had requested 10 to 18 years of imprisonment against 49 of them, prosecuted for aggravated rape, four years of prison being requested against the last, only prosecuted for “touching” Gisèle Pelicot.
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