Initiating the end of the process that began eleven weeks ago, before the Court of Avignon, prosecutors have requested twenty years in prison for Dominique Pelicot (71 years old), the husband who drugged his wife Gisèle, in the marital home, in Mazan ( Vaucluse), to photograph and film how dozens of men sadistically raped her, between July 2011 and October 2020.
Jean-François Mayet, one of the two prosecutors of the process, has summarized its scope with this statement: «This process has historically influenced our society. What is at stake is not the conviction or non-conviction of the accused, the accused. “What is at stake is the radical change in relations between men and women.”
Having established that cardinal principle, thus confirmed by national and international reactions, launching calls for an “awareness”, the two prosecutors made a brief “summary” of the process, to insist on the “abject behavior” of Pelicot and half of hundred men.
Gisèle Pelicot, the drugged and raped wife of a decade, decided, at the time, to do two things: to continue carrying her husband’s last name; and the dissemination, during the trial, of the photos and videos taken by her husband during the rape sessions that he himself had organized. This tragic testimony, unprecedented in judicial history, has given the process an unusual dimension, confirming in a frightening way the terrifying reality of the accusations.
Faced with this reality, documented with precision, associations and personalities wonder if twenty years in prison, firm, is a sentence, a “sufficient” punishment… in any case, it is the maximum sentence provided for by the current Penal Code.
Gisèle’s first smile
Upon her arrival at the courthouse of Avignon, where she would hear the prosecutors’ request, Gisèle Pelicot smiled, for the first time, since the trial began, making this brief statement. “I live these hours with great emotion.”
After the request for twenty years in prison for the “man orchestra” of the rapes of his own wife, the prosecutors began their charges against the 50 defendants who are also on trial. Gisèle Pelicot was raped by more than a hundred strangers. But justice has only managed to identify and arrest fifty, aged 26 to 74.
Feminist associations demand, for them, the same sentence, twenty years in prison. Prosecutors will have to analyze relatively “different” cases. Ten of the accused raped Mrs. Pelicot on several occasions. Others only raped her once.
“I am a rapist, I must pay”
The main accused, Dominique Pelicot, acknowledged, at the time, all his crimes, declaring: “I am a rapist, I must pay.” The rest of the rapists have reacted very differently. Some have acknowledged the violation. Others have “apologized”, saying they were “deceived” by their husband.
Prosecutors must analyze each case individually, to finish their interventions next Friday. The interventions of the defense lawyers will continue, leaving the process ready for sentencing, it is expected at the end of the year.
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