Details of the alleged beating and rape of an Argentine woman by two French rugby players have shocked the South American country. “They choked her, abused her and dragged her on the ground,” said Natacha Romano, the lawyer for the plaintiff against Oscar Jegou, 21, and Hugo Auradou, 20. Romano said the assault took place early Sunday morning in the hotel room where the rugby players were staying in Mendoza, some 1,000 kilometres west of the Argentine capital. The players’ defence team maintains that they are innocent.
The French rugby team arrived in Argentina last week. On Saturday they won a friendly match against Los Pumas in Mendoza and part of the team went out to celebrate in a nightclub. According to the complaint, the victim met Jegou, the captain of the French team, there, who invited her to have a drink. She felt dizzy, but agreed to accompany him to the hotel.
The lawyer said that the woman entered the room alone with Jegou, who abused her first alone and then with his teammate. “After 40 minutes, the second rugby player, Auradou, entered the room. Oscar opened the door, the victim was not aware that he was going to enter. And immediately this person began to abuse her, both of them at the same time,” Romano told Radio Mitre. “She said that she went into shock. That the first attacker tried to strangle her and that the second did the same,” she continued.
The complainant, whose identity is being kept secret, appeared at the police station on Sunday afternoon and accompanied her statement with forensic studies that show blows, bites and scratches. “The most visible injury was the punch that marks one of her eyes. She also has bruises on her neck, chin, breasts, legs and back,” Romano explained. “Although the most serious part of these crimes is the sexual abuse with carnal access, the violence with which these two men have acted has been merciless due to the physical injuries they caused her,” he stressed.
Police arrested Jegou and Auradou in Buenos Aires before the team travelled to Uruguay, where they are scheduled to play another friendly match on Friday. They are currently in an Interpol office, awaiting transfer to Mendoza, where a judicial investigation is being carried out against them for “sexual abuse with particularly aggravated carnal access”. The lawyer is asking that they also be investigated for unlawful deprivation of liberty, stating that the victim tried to flee the room and Jegou prevented her from doing so.
The head of crimes against sexual integrity, Daniela Chahler, said that “there are compelling elements” in the victim’s statement that correspond to what was confirmed by the Forensic Medical Corps. “In addition to the abuse, we are talking about a woman who was brutally beaten,” said Chaler.
A defender with ties to power
The rugby players deny the accusations against them and the defense attorney, Rafael Cúneo Libarona, maintains that he has evidence that could change the course of the investigation. “I trust in their innocence,” declared the lawyer, who is the brother of the Minister of Justice, Mariano Cúneo Libarona, on Wednesday. The lawyer denounced that rugby players are stigmatized in Argentina, especially after the beating to death of Fernandez Báez Sosa, an 18-year-old, in the coastal town of Villa Gessel. “Just because there are kids who have beaten people in Villa Gesell does not mean that all rugby players are beaters. Stigmatization and generalization do not help.”
The case has also had a great impact in France. “If the investigation establishes the alleged facts, they constitute an indescribable atrocity,” Amélie Oudéa-Castéra wrote on her social networks, French Sports Minister Florian Grill, president of the French Rugby Federation, agreed: “If the accusations are true, they are incredibly serious. The first thing to say is to think of the young woman. This goes against everything rugby is, does and is built on.”
Jegou, 21 years old and 1.90 meters tall, plays as a defender for the La Rochelle club. Last October he was involved in another scandal when he tested positive for cocaine. Auradou, 20 years old and 2 meters tall, is a second row player for Pau.
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