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La Jornada Newspaper
Tuesday, November 26, 2024, p. 22
Avignon. The French prosecutor’s office yesterday requested the maximum sentence, 20 years in prison, against Dominique Pelicot for drugging his now ex-wife Gisèle for a decade so that strangers could rape her, acts that he described as abject.
Twenty years is little considering the seriousness of the acts committedsaid prosecutor Laure Chabaud during the trial taking place in Avignon, in the south of France.
This media trial, whose coverage has gone around the world, entered its final stretch yesterday with the request for sentences for the 51 defendants – one of them judged in absentia –, a key stage that will take three days.
But what’s at stake It is not a condemnation or an acquittal, but a fundamental change in the relations between men and womenassured prosecutor Jean-François Mayet, in the final arguments.
After 11 weeks of trial, the request for sentences coincides with the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
It is another symbolsaid Antoine Camus, one of the victim’s lawyers, who from the beginning of the trial rejected that it be held behind closed doors, so that shame changes sides.
At 71 years old, Gisèle Pelicot has become a feminist symbol. I’m very excitedthe woman declared yesterday upon her arrival at the trial, for which 138 media outlets were accredited, of which 57 were international.
Drugs and rape
The main defendant is her husband for almost half a century and the father of her three children. This 71-year-old man is accused of secretly drugging her, giving her medication to put her to sleep and raping her at her home along with dozens of men between 2011 and 2020.
Dominique Pelicot recognized the facts and made an effort during the trial to dismantle the defense of the rest of the accused, many of whom stated that they were planning to participate in a couple’s sexual game. libertine.
“In 2024, you can no longer say: ‘she didn’t say anything, she agreed.’ That is from another era,” said prosecutor Chabaud.
Most of the rest of the defendants, aged between 26 and 74, also face up to 20 years in prison for aggravated rape.
The prosecution set the tone with the first request for one of the defendants.
For Jean-Pierre M, 63 years old and the only accused not to be tried for raping Gisèle, the public prosecutor requested 17 years in prison for sexually assaulting his own wife with the same methods.
Some of the defense lawyers described the requests as disproportionate and during a recess they criticized the prosecutor’s office for having made its requests under the influence of the public opinion.
Before the verdict is known, scheduled for December 20, the defenses have until the 13th to present their final arguments.
The first will be Dominique Pelicot’s lawyer, Béatrice Zavarro, who assured yesterday that her client It’s destroyed. It is not easy for anyone to hear that a 20-year prison sentence was requested against him.he added.
