After a week’s break, the cases of eight new men among the 51 alleged rapists of Gisèle Pelicot will be heard on Monday at the Avignon court.
The Mazan rape trial resumes this Monday with the aim of examining the cases of eight other men among the fifty suspects accused of sexually assaulting Gisèle Pelicot while she was unconscious, drugged by her ex-husband.
“It’s a marathon, (…) but she remains combative and determined to go all the way, because she’s carried by this surge of support that goes beyond the borders of France.“Antoine Camus, one of the lawyers for Gisèle Pelicot, now ex-wife of Dominique Pelicot, the “orchestrator” of the rapes that took place over 10 years, from 2011 to 2020, at the couple’s marital home in Mazan (Vaucluse), told AFP.
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Of the 51 defendants in this extraordinary trial, emblematic of the issues of chemical submission and consent, 36 have already appeared since September 2 before the Vaucluse criminal court, whose verdict is expected on December 20. Most are charged with aggravated rape, and face up to 20 years’ imprisonment.
Very few of the 50 co-defendants, aged between 26 and 74, admit to having been invited or even lured by Dominique Pelicot to take part in the scenario of a libertine couple.
The cases of eight new defendants
“We’re getting tired. Gisèle Pelicot is very tired of hearing almost systematically the same explanations from the defendants on the legal ground of intent, (…) hearing that she was the victim of rape ‘by accident’, rape ‘by error of judgment’, rape ‘against her will’. In the end, what is being explained to her is that she is the exclusive victim of her husband.“said Me Camus.
The eight defendants whose cases will be examined starting Monday are Saifeddine G., a 36-year-old truck driver; Paul G., a 31-year-old factory worker, aged 22 at the time of the events; Omar D., a 36-year-old maintenance worker; Cendric V., a 42-year-old restaurant manager; Cédric G., a 50-year-old computer technician, who planned to reproduce the same chemical submission process on his own wife; or Romain V., a 63-year-old HIV-positive bachelor who went to Mazan six times, without ever wearing a condom.
Hassan O., 30, who is still the subject of an international arrest warrant, will be tried in absentia.
Ludovick B., a 41-year-old unemployed temp, is suspected of having raped Gisèle Pelicot in 2019, with the complicity of her ex-husband, at the home of their own daughter, Caroline Darian, in the Paris region.