Mexico City.- Gisele, who was drugged and raped by dozens of men along with her husband, Dominique Pelicot, said on Wednesday that “forgiveness does not exist”, rejecting the apologies of her ex-husband and one of his main accomplices that they regretted having hurt the women they loved.
The woman also denounced the accusations of some defense attorneys in the case, who point to the woman’s possible complicity in the attacks.
“These men are degenerates. They committed rape,” Gisele, 72, told the court.
“There is no such thing as forgiveness these days. I have felt humiliated while I have been in this courtroom. I have been called an alcoholic and an accomplice to Mr Pelicot,” she said, adding that her life had been “destroyed” for 10 years.
The trial, which began on September 2 in Avignon against Gisèle’s ex-husband, shocked France and her decision to make the proceedings public turned her into a symbol of the fight against sexual violence.
Some of the defendants claim that they were unaware that Pelicot was giving his wife sleeping pills and that they thought they were a libertine couple.
“She was in a coma and the videos that will be shown will prove it. The experts were shocked by these videos, and they are men,” said the woman.
“I never for a second gave my consent to Mr. Pelicot or these men,” said the victim, who was married to the main defendant for 50 years and recently obtained a divorce.
Gisele insisted on a public trial in an attempt to expose her ex-husband and the 50 men she is accused of inviting to rape her in a small town in the south of France.
The court asked attendees not to boo the suspects in the case, telling them they were innocent until proven guilty, in response to a scuffle between supporters of the victim and some of the defendants the day before. Tensions rose further during Wednesday’s hearing.
In the most heated exchanges of the day, two of the defense attorneys representing the men Pelicot invited to her family home to commit abuse asked the court to show photographs they said raised questions about whether the victim knew what had happened to her.
Gisele firmly denied the allegations. “They are trying to set me up with these photos,” she said, reiterating that she never agreed to any sexual activity. Her ex-husband said he took all the images while his wife was unconscious.
The Pelicots’ daughter, Caroline, was on the verge of tears in the courtroom as her mother spoke. She later left the courtroom when the visual evidence was shown.
Dominique Pelicot has denied drugging or sexually abusing Caroline, but photographs of her were found on her father’s devices alongside images of her mother being raped.
Caroline has told French media that she began campaigning publicly to fight drug-induced sexual assault to cope with the shock following her father’s arrest.
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