One is 43 years old and works as a freelance journalist, another 37 and employed by a transport company. The two others: a 62-year-old gardener and a 69-year-old pensioner.
The four men are the last defendants to be heard in the trial in southern French Avignon. They come from seemingly ordinary backgrounds, but have stood trial this fall in one of the most notorious rape cases in French history. Like the main defendant Dominique Pélicot and 45 other men, they will now receive their verdict.
Has Confessed
Dominique Pélicot, 71, has confessed to drugging his former wife, raping her, and inviting other men to participate. It is alleged to involve several hundred rapes that took place over nearly a decade. If Pélicot is convicted, he will likely go down in history as one of France's worst sex offenders.
Since I didn't want to go to a swingers' club, he thought he had found a solution by putting me to sleep, said Gisèle Pélicot on Tuesday in court.
This wound will never heal.
Pélicot, who has become a feminist icon by insisting on a public trial, also pointed out that the macho society – with patriarchal norms that she believes trivialize rape – must change.
The ex-spouses Pélicot have two sons and a daughter who regularly attended the trial. On Dominique Pélicot's computer, naked pictures of the daughter with strange underwear were also found, which has raised suspicions that she too was subjected to abuse. The 45-year-old daughter believes she has been "forgotten".
The only difference between her (the mother) and me is the lack of evidence in my case. For me, it's a total tragedy, says the daughter, who wrote a book in 2022 about what she went through.
Risks 20 Years
During his testimony, one of the sons expressed hope that the father and the co-defendants will be punished for "the horrors and atrocities they have committed". He also urged the father to tell the court what he had done to his sister.
I swear I never touched my children or grandchildren, replied the father.
Of the approximately 50 co-defendants who have appeared in court, 14 have confessed to aggravated rape and risk up to 20 years in prison. The others deny the crime and claim they thought they were participating in sex games – an explanation that Gisèle Pélicot has grown tired of.
I want to ask these men: At what point did Mrs. Pélicot give you her consent?
The verdict is expected no later than December 20.
For several years, Gisèle Pélicot had strange memory lapses and other health problems and thought she had Alzheimer's.
In 2020, she found out from the police that her husband Dominique Pélicot, also the father of her three children, had secretly given her large doses of sedatives, raped her, and invited dozens of strangers to their shared home to participate. The crimes had been going on for nearly a decade and were carefully documented and cataloged by the husband.
The husband was caught almost by chance in 2020, after he had filmed under women's skirts in a local supermarket. The documentation of the abuse led the police to 50 suspected perpetrators, one of whom is still at large.
Dominique Pélicot has also photographed his daughter and his sons' wives without their knowledge and published naked pictures of them on social media along with pornographic photomontages.
Source: AFP
