Dominique PelicotThe Frenchman who drugged his wife, Gisèle Pélicot, for ten years and offered her up on Internet sex forums so that more than 50 men could rape her, confessed to all the charges against him on Tuesday during his first statement at the court trial, held in Avignon.
“I’m a rapist, just like everyone else in this room. I acknowledge the facts in their entirety.“This is how his testimony began, postponed for health reasons and held two weeks after the start of the trial that shocked France. “She didn’t deserve it, I admit,” he added in tears and with a broken voice. A 71-year-old retiree.
His testimony, postponed for health reasons, comes two weeks into the trial, which could last until December. In the coming days and weeks, the other defendants are expected to testify: the 51 men who allegedly raped Gisèle after her husband drugged her and left her unconscious.
During his speech, Dominique also claimed that he recorded the videos of the rapes “for fun” and that he had never considered his wife “as an object”, even if the images show the opposite. However, he claimed that “thanks to this [a los vídeos] “It was possible to know who participated.”
Some of the accused have already stated that they did not know that Gisèle Pélicot I was unconsciousunder the influence of anxiolytics, when they had sex with her, and they thought that it was all part of the sexual fantasies that the couple shared, and that therefore there was consent on both sides.
“I trusted him”
The victim, Gisèle Pélicot, heard the entire statement of her husband, from whom she is now divorced, and his aggressor. He then spoke at the trial. “For fifty years, I lived with a man who I never imagined I could commit these acts. of rape. He is aware of these acts, but I did not doubt this man for a single second. I had total confidence in him,” he lamented. “For 50 years, I loved him,” he acknowledged.
The violent sex plot was uncovered in 2020, when police arrested Pélicot for record under women’s skirts in a supermarket in the city of Carpentras. So, Investigators who searched his home found hundreds of videos and photos he had taken during sexual abuse sessions with his drugged wife on a hard drive.
These videos have allowed the identification of just over fifty men, 50 of whom are being tried in this process. Each of them could be sentenced to 20 years in prison for aggravated rape.
