AVIGNON, France –
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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 practically a decade, in addition to raping her himself. He pleaded together with her, and their three youngsters, for forgiveness.
“At the moment I preserve that, together with the opposite males right here, I’m a rapist,″ Dominique Pélicot informed the court docket. “They knew every part. They will’t say in any other case.”
Dominique Pelicot’s testimony is crucial second up to now in a trial that has shocked and gripped France, and raised new consciousness about sexual violence. Many additionally hope his testimony will shed some gentle — 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 determine on the destiny of some 50 different males standing trial alongside him. Many deny having raped Gisele Pelicot, saying they had been manipulated by her then-husband or claiming they believed she was consenting.
Gisele Pelicot has grow to be an emblem of the battle towards 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.
Beneath French regulation, the proceedings contained in the courtroom can’t be filmed or photographed. Dominique Pelicot is dropped at the court docket by a particular entrance inaccessible for the media, as a result of he and another defendants are being held in custody throughout the trial. Defendants who usually are not 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 attributable to his medical state, Dominique Pelicot appeared in court docket Tuesday and informed judges he acknowledged all the fees towards him.
His much-awaited testimony was delayed by days after he fell in poor health, affected by a kidney stone and urinary an infection, his attorneys mentioned.
Seated in a wheelchair, Pelicot spoke to the court docket for an hour, from his adolescence to years of abuse towards his now ex-wife.
Expressing regret, his voice trembling and at instances barely audible, he sought to clarify occasions that he mentioned scarred his childhood and planted the seed of vice in him.
“One shouldn’t be born a pervert, one turns into a pervert,” Pelicot informed judges, after recounting, generally in tears, being raped by a male nurse in hospital when he was 9 years outdated after which being compelled to participate in a gang rape at age 14.
Pelicot additionally spoke of the trauma endured when his mother and father took a younger lady within the household, and witnessing his father’s inappropriate conduct towards her.
“My father used to do the identical factor with the little lady,” he mentioned. “After my father’s loss of life, my brother mentioned that males used to return to our home.”
At 14, he mentioned, he requested his mom if he may go away the home, however “she did not let me.”
“I do not actually need to speak about this, I’m simply ashamed of my father. In the long run, I did not do any higher,” he mentioned.
Requested about his emotions towards his spouse, Pelicot mentioned she didn’t deserve what he did.
“From my youth, I bear in mind solely shocks and traumas, forgotten partly due to her. She didn’t deserve this, I acknowledge it,” he mentioned in tears.
At that second, Gisele Pelicot, standing throughout the room, dealing with him throughout a gaggle of dozens of defendants sitting in between them, put her sun shades again on.
Later, Dominique Pelicot mentioned, “I used to be loopy about her. She changed every part. I ruined every part.”
A safety agent caught Pelicot in 2020 filming movies underneath girls’s skirts in a grocery store, in line with court docket paperwork. Police searched Pelicot’s home and digital gadgets, and located 1000’s of images and movies of males partaking in sexual acts with Gisele Pelicot 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.
Gisele Pelicot and her husband of fifty years had three youngsters. Once 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 informed them her husband was “an awesome man,” in line with authorized paperwork. They then confirmed her some images. She left her husband and they’re now divorced.
He faces 20 years in jail if convicted. Moreover Pélicot, 50 different males, aged 26 to 74, are standing trial.
Bernadette Tessonière, a 69-year-old retiree who lives a half-hour drive from Avignon, the place the trial is going down, arrived outdoors the courthouse at 7:15 a.m. to ensure she would safe a seat within the intently watched case.
“How is it attainable that in 50 years of communal life, one can dwell subsequent to somebody who hides his life so effectively? That is scary,” she mentioned, whereas standing in a line outdoors the courthouse. “I don’t have a lot hope that what he did will be defined, however he’s at the least going to offer some parts.”
