The rape trial in Mazan has been adjourned until Monday morning, pending the return of Dominique Pelicot, the main defendant in this case, announced the president of the Vaucluse criminal court, Roger Arata, on Thursday, September 12.
The 71-year-old retiree has been ill since Monday and is excused from attending the hearings. If he were “permanently unavailable”the matter then would be “dismissed”The judge added, referring to the outright termination of this trial, which began on September 2 and was scheduled to last until December, and its postponement to a later date.
“O Pelicot is there [lundi], and we continue. If you are not there for one, two or three days, we will extend the suspension.”Mr. Arata spoke first. “But if he is not permanently available, the case will be postponed.”continuous.
This announcement by the president of the criminal court caused confusion among defense lawyers and civil parties. “Understanding who can”reacted mmy Antoine Camus, one of the two lawyers for the civil parties, Gisèle Pelicot, the main victim in this case, and the couple’s three children.
A decade of rape
If it is a reference, then “Everything needs to be rearranged, the agenda, the availability of the room, the court, etc. And what about those who are detained? Because at that point I can assume that there will be requests for release.”For his part, M. confirmed.my Béatrice Zavarro, the lawyer of Mr. Pelicot, the man who, for ten years, from July 2011 to October 2020, drugged his wife with anxiolytics and then raped her and had her raped by dozens of men recruited on the Internet.
It all came to light after Mr Pelicot was caught filming under the skirts of three women in a shopping centre in Carpentras (Vaucluse). It was by searching his computer that investigators discovered this decade of rapes, photographed, filmed and meticulously subtitled and archived by the accused.
Alongside him, 50 men, aged between 26 and 74, are on trial in Avignon, most of them accused of aggravated rape, acts for which they face twenty years in prison. Eighteen of these defendants, including Mr. Pelicot, appear to be in custody. Thirty-two others appear to be at large; the last, a fugitive, is being tried in absentia.
Covered by the media around the world and made a symbol of the issue of rape by chemical subjugation, this Mazan rape trial is also taken as an example by feminist movements to relaunch the debate on the issue of consent.
METROme Pelicot is even becoming a symbol of the fight against sexual violence. Her stylized face, with the slogan “Shame changes sides”It is thus used to call for a demonstration on Friday at 13:00 in Avignon. “against rape culture”. Numerous calls for demonstrations have also been launched for Saturday throughout France, in support of Mme Pelicot and all rape victims.
