An individual was declared guilty on higher court review of raping Gisele Pelicot after she was rendered comatose by her then-husband – and received his jail term extended to a decade.
Retrial Proceedings
The defendant, forty-four, an unemployed builder, who had contested his first conviction last year, underwent a new trial this week at the higher court in Nîmes.
A panel of nine jurors, sitting with three judges, found Dogan guilty on Thursday of raping the victim in her residence in the south of France in the morning of 29 June 2019.
The testimony revealed that the accused, a married father, connected with the victim's husband at the time, Dominique Pelicot, in an internet forum titled “unbeknownst to her”, where Pelicot was looking for men to come to his home to assault his wife after he had drugged her into a deep sleep.
We expect the court will declare that in this country, human rights are also rights of women – that consent is personal, not transferred,” said Gisèle Pelicot’s lawyer, Antoine Camus. “Consent is obtained personally and not through someone else from a spouse.”
Background
The husband, one of the worst sexual predators in recent French history, was sentenced to two decades in prison last year for drugging his spouse and bringing in dozens of men to rape her in her home in the community of the village of Mazan over a span of almost a decade of their union.
Fifty other men were found convicted in a widely publicized trial last year, and Dogan was the single defendant to challenge his verdict. He was initially handed a term to 9 years in prison, a penalty increased on Thursday to ten years.
The lead state prosecutor, the prosecutor, had argued he should serve 12 years, because he “stubbornly rejects to take any blame”.
Courtroom Details
Dogan had initially sent the husband inappropriate pictures and then driven an hour from his village in the region to assault Gisèle Pelicot, after informing his wife he was going out, the testimony revealed.
Pelicot, who was transported from segregation in prison to briefly give evidence at the hearing, informed the court that Dogan had been aware his wife had been “incapacitated” and he communicated to men by phone: “I want someone to abuse my wife after I’ve rendered her unconscious unbeknownst to her.”
The trial became a key topic for a larger conversation on societal attitudes in society as the defendant continued to say he was innocent and had not perpetrated assault, arguing that because Gisèle Pelicot’s husband had invited him into the residence, his conduct had been permissible.
The panel in the Nîmes appeals court was shown video evidence of Gisèle Pelicot’s unresponsive form, sedated and snoring in a deep sleep, while a smiling Dogan performed assault repeatedly over a timeframe of what investigators stated was three and a half hours. The court official said she had been at danger of death by suffocation. The state prosecution said there was no question that she had been incapacitated and had not agreed.
Accused's Testimony
The defendant told the court the videos were simply “intimate moments” and disputed it was rape. He said what he did was “a sexual act”, not rape. He told the court: “I am innocent of assault.” He said Gisèle Pelicot’s husband had invited him to the house, and therefore it was acceptable. He said he was manipulated by the husband. “I wanted to stop,” the accused stated to the court. “I continued because he convinced me.”
Asked if he wanted to make a last words to the court, Dogan said: “I did not intend to injure that individual.”
Pelicot's Words
The survivor, who was applauded upon exiting the courtroom each day by crowds assembled to back her, told Dogan in court: “You haven’t understood. When will you admit you raped me? It is illegal to assault an unconscious woman. When did I ever give you consent? Never.”
Gisèle Pelicot, seventy-two, became an symbol of resistance after she waived her right to confidentiality in the trial last year when she said: “The shame should shift.”
State's Argument
Sie, speaking to the victim in court, said the defendant's refusal to take accountability showed that: “The shame remains. The public is maybe in the course of that, perhaps motivated by the public consciousness resulting from the publication of your case.”
Sie said the defendant's claims of blamelessness showed how normalized violence was still common in society as part of “old-fashioned” forms of “male domination”. He said: “It is imperative to change the culture of violence to a society based on agreement.”
Sie said to the defendant: “As long as you refuse to admit it, it’s not just a individual, it’s an whole unpleasant cultural framework that you are upholding.”
Defendant's Background
Dogan was originated from the country of Turkey and at the age of 5 moved to France, where his father worked as a concierge. The testimony revealed that his father was aggressive and that the defendant began using drugs at the age of ten. When he was seventeen he was caught by authorities for selling narcotics and his father kicked him out the residence. He served time in prison for drug dealing in his twenties and had worked as a construction worker but had experienced periods of being unhoused.
He was wed and had a child with special needs, who he was the primary guardian for, as his spouse worked in a institution's dining hall. The testimony revealed his spouse did not know he had frequent sexual encounters outside their union. His defence said this was his way of coping with his difficult circumstances. Dogan had stated to a court psychologist that each year he sought commercial sex on his special day. His lawyers informed the court he had joint inflammation caused by the anxiety of the original case.
