AVIGNON, France (AP) — A 71-year-old French man acknowledged in court docket Tuesday that he drugged his then-wife and invited dozens of males to rape her over almost a decade, in addition to raping her himself.
He pleaded together with her, and their three kids, for forgiveness.
“Today I maintain that, along with the other men here, I am a rapist,″ Dominique Pélicot told the court. “They knew everything. They can’t say otherwise.”
Dominique Pélicot’s testimony is an important second to date in a trial that has shocked and gripped the nation, and raised new consciousness about sexual violence. Many additionally hope his testimony will shed some mild — to attempt to perceive the unthinkable.
Whereas he beforehand confessed to investigators, the court docket testimony shall be essential for the panel of judges to resolve on the destiny of some 50 different males standing trial alongside him. Many deny having raped Gisèle Pélicot, saying they had been manipulated by her then-husband or claiming they believed she was consenting.
Gisèle Pélicot has change into a logo of the combat in opposition to sexual violence in France for agreeing to waive her anonymity within the case, letting the trial be public, and showing overtly in entrance of the media. She is predicted to talk in court docket after her ex-husband’s testimony on Tuesday.
Underneath French legislation, the proceedings contained in the courtroom can’t be filmed or photographed. Dominique Pélicot is dropped at the court docket by means of a particular entrance inaccessible for the media, as a result of he and another defendants are being held in custody in the course of the trial. Defendants who aren’t in custody come to the trial sporting surgical masks or hoods to keep away from having their faces filmed or photographed.
After days of uncertainty because of his medical state, Dominique Pélicot appeared in court docket Tuesday and advised judges he acknowledged all the fees in opposition to him.
His much-awaited testimony was delayed by days after he fell ailing, affected by a kidney stone and urinary an infection, his legal professionals stated.
Seated in a wheelchair, Pélicot spoke to the court docket for an hour, from his adolescence to years of abuse in opposition to his now ex-wife.
Expressing regret, his voice trembling and at occasions barely audible, he sought to clarify occasions that he stated scarred his childhood and planted the seed of vice in him.
“One is not born a pervert, one becomes a pervert,” Pélicot advised judges, after recounting, generally in tears, being raped by a male nurse in hospital when he was 9 years previous after which being compelled to participate in a gang rape at age 14.
Pélicot additionally spoke of the trauma endured when his dad and mom took a younger lady within the household, and witnessing his father’s inappropriate habits towards her.
“My father used to do the same thing with the little girl,″ he said. “After my father’s death, my brother said that men used to come to our house.”
At 14, he stated, he requested his mom if he may go away the home, however “she didn’t let me.”
“I don’t really want to talk about this, I am just ashamed of my father. In the end, I didn’t do any better,″ he said.
Asked about his feelings toward his wife, Pélicot said she did not deserve what he did.
“From my youth, I remember only shocks and traumas, forgotten partly thanks to her. She did not deserve this, I acknowledge it,” he stated in tears.
At that second, Gisèle Pélicot, standing throughout the room, dealing with him throughout a bunch of dozens of defendants sitting in between them, put her sun shades again on.
Later, Dominique Pélicot stated, “I was crazy about her. She replaced everything. I ruined everything.”
A safety agent caught Pélicot in 2020 filming movies below girls’s skirts in a grocery store, in response to court docket paperwork. Police searched Pélicot’s home and digital units, and located 1000’s of pictures and movies of males participating in sexual acts with Gisèle Pélicot whereas she seems to lie unconscious on their mattress.
With the recordings, police had been capable of observe down a majority of the 72 suspects they had been looking for.
Gisèle Pélicot and her husband of fifty years had three kids. After they retired, the couple left the Paris area to maneuver right into a home in Mazan, a small city in Provence.
When cops known as her in for questioning in late 2020, she initially advised them her husband was “a great guy,″ according to legal documents. They then showed her some photos. She left her husband and they are now divorced.
He faces 20 years in prison if convicted. Besides Pélicot, 50 other men, aged 26 to 74, are standing trial.
Bernadette Tessonière, a 69-year-old retiree who lives a half-hour drive from Avignon, where the trial is taking place, arrived outside the courthouse at 7:15 a.m. to make sure she would secure a seat in the closely watched case.
“How is it possible that in 50 years of communal life, one can live next to someone who hides his life so well? This is scary,” she stated, whereas standing in a line exterior the courthouse. “I don’t have much hope that what he did can be explained, but he is at least going to give some elements.”
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