Dominique Pelicot, the main defendant in the Mazan rape case, who had not appeared at the hearing since last Wednesday for health reasons, returned to the Vaucluse criminal court on Tuesday 17 September. Aided by a cane and dressed in a grey jacket, he slowly entered the defendant’s box before sitting down in a blue armchair that would supposedly be more comfortable and allow him to follow the following hearings.
“I’m a rapist like everyone else in this room. They all knew it, they can’t say otherwise.”He said, speaking of the 50 co-defendants in the trial, before adding about his ex-wife Gisèle Pelicot, whom he drugged to rape: “She didn’t deserve this.”
At the opening of the hearing, the president of the court, Roger Arata, revealed the conclusions of the medical examination commissioned to assess Dominique Pelicot’s state of health. “The accused is physically and mentally fit to appear”He said, moving away for the moment from the scenario feared by the victims of a postponement of several weeks or even several months of this emblematic trial for sexual violence and chemical submission.
Improved conditions
Arata specified the conditions under which the hearing would take place: a 15 to 20 minute break every 90 minutes, which the septuagenarian could spend on a mattress in his prison, and an armchair to follow the discussions.
Tuesday’s hearing began with the first real speech from Dominique Pelicot, who until now had only been heard on the opening day of the trial, on September 2, to say that he acknowledged the facts and that his home was now the prison.
Dominique Pelicot is accused of having drugged his wife with anxiolytics for ten years, from July 2011 to October 2020, then raping her and having her raped by dozens of men recruited on the Internet. The court could also question his ex-wife, Gisèle Pelicot, as well as her brother Joël.
Dominique Pelicot’s testimony is also crucial to the case of the other men, aged between 26 and 74, who are on trial alongside him. In the coming days, the court will continue the questioning, already underway, of four of them: Jean-Pierre M., aged 63, Jacques C., aged 72, Lionel R., aged 44, and Cyrille D., aged 54.
