The police saved my lifedeclares wife raped multiple times for 10 years in France
▲ Gisele Pelicot, speaking to the media outside the courthouse in Avignon, southern France, said she hopes that making her case public will help other women defend themselves against abuse.Photo Ap
Afp
The newspaper La Jornada
Friday, September 6, 2024, p. 26
Avignon. The police saved my lifeGisele Pelicot, who was drugged by her husband for 10 years so that she would be raped by dozens of men contacted via the Internet in France, said calmly and determinedly in court yesterday.
The 71-year-old victim was the protagonist of the fourth day of this mega-trial against 51 men, including her husband, for aggravated rapes committed between 2011 and 2020, before the criminal court of Avignon, in the south of France.
The case, which has horrified France, came to light by chance when her husband, Dominique Pelicot, 71, was caught in 2020 in a shopping centre filming up the skirts of customers.
Investigators then found nearly 4,000 photos and videos of the victim on her computers, hard drives and USB drives, visibly unconscious as dozens of strangers raped her.
My world is collapsing, everything is collapsing, everything I built for 50 yearshis wife said, recalling the moment when the police showed her some photographs on November 2, 2020.
In the image, I am inert, in my bed and they are raping me. These are barbaric scenes.she told the five judges about the rapes organized by the father of her three children.
That day, the victim refused to watch videos found by investigators of the approximately 200 rapes she suffered first in a house in the Paris region and then in Mazan, in the south of France, until 2020.
They treat me like a rag doll, I wonder how I endured ithe said, considering that it was sacrificed on the altar of vice. And I continue: My body is warm, not cold, but I’m dead in my bed.
In most cases, these men were not wearing a condom. By an extraordinary stroke of luck, (…) he was freed from HIV, syphilis and hepatitissaid medical expert Anne Martinat Sainte-Beuve, adding that the woman had contracted four sexually transmitted infections.
Some of the accused claim that they were unaware that her husband was giving her medication to make her sleep and that they thought they were a libertine couple, something that the victim denied.
I have never practiced (…) partner swapping. I would like to make that clearthe woman assured.
The defendants face up to 20 years in prison in this trial that is due to last until December 20. The first questioning of her husband, with whom she is in the process of divorcing, is scheduled for next week.
Addressing the accused, Gisele Pelicot acknowledged having a feeling of disgustbut demanded of them: Take responsibility for your actions at least once in your lifeduring his statement at the Palais de Justice in Avignon.
The woman wanted to make this trial an example of the use of drugs in rape cases and, at the beginning of the proceedings, she refused to have it held behind closed doors, as the prosecution and part of the defence had requested in vain.
I speak for all these women who are drugged and don’t know it, on behalf of all those who may never know it (…), so that no more women have to suffer chemical submission.he stressed.
Although his family initially asked that his last name not be published, as AFP and other media respected, his lawyers gave the go-ahead yesterday, because more than ever [sus hijos] They are proud of their mother.
