🔗 Share this article

A man was convicted on higher court review of sexually assaulting Gisèle Pelicot following she was rendered comatose by her then-husband – and was given his incarceration period increased to 10 years.

Retrial Proceedings

Husamettin Dogan, forty-four, an out-of-work construction worker, who had appealed his first conviction last year, experienced a new trial this week at the appeals court in Nîmes.

A panel of nine jurors, sitting with three judges, found Dogan guilty on Thursday of raping Pelicot in her home in the south of France in the morning of June 29, 2019.

The testimony revealed that Dogan, a married father, connected with Gisèle Pelicot’s husband at the time, Dominique Pelicot, in an online chatroom called “without her knowledge”, where Pelicot was seeking men to visit his house to rape his wife after he had drugged her into a comatose state.

We expect the panel will affirm that in this society, fundamental rights are also women’s rights – that permission is personal, not given by another,” declared the victim's attorney, Antoine Camus. “Permission is obtained directly and not by proxy from a spouse.”

Context

The ex-husband, one of the worst sexual predators in recent French history, was sentenced to two decades in prison last year for drugging his wife at the time and soliciting multiple perpetrators to sexually assault her in her home in the town of Mazan over a duration of nearly ten years of their union.

Fifty other men were found culpable in a high-profile trial last year, and the appellant was the single defendant to appeal against his sentence. He was initially sentenced to 9 years in prison, a punishment raised on Thursday to a decade.

The state's attorney, the prosecutor, had stated he should serve twelve years, because he “completely denies to take any accountability”.

Courtroom Details

The defendant had first sent Dominique Pelicot graphic images and then traveled an hour from his residence in the region to assault the victim, after informing his wife he was leaving, the court heard.

Pelicot, who was brought from solitary confinement in prison to temporarily give evidence at the retrial, informed the court that Dogan had known his wife had been “drugged” and he communicated to men by phone: “I seek someone to violate my wife after I’ve put her to sleep unbeknownst to her.”

The courtroom became a central issue for a broader debate on rape culture in society as the defendant continued to assert he was innocent and had not perpetrated assault, contending that because the victim's husband had allowed him into the bedroom, his conduct had been justifiable.

The panel in the Nîmes appeals court was shown visual proof of Gisèle Pelicot’s limp body, unconscious and snoring in a comatose state, while a grinning the perpetrator engaged in violation repeatedly over a period of what police said was three and a half hours. The judge said she had been at peril of fatal outcome by asphyxiation. The state's case said there was no question that she had been incapacitated and had not agreed.

Dogan's Claims

Dogan informed the court the videos were simply “sex scenes” and rejected it was rape. He said what he did was “a consensual activity”, not rape. He told the court: “I am innocent of assault.” He said Gisèle Pelicot’s husband had brought him to the residence, and therefore it was acceptable. He said he was manipulated by the husband. “I tried to halt,” Dogan informed the court. “I continued because he persuaded me.”

Asked if he wanted to make a final statement to the court, the defendant said: “I did not intend to injure that woman.”

Pelicot's Words

Gisèle Pelicot, who was supported upon exiting the courtroom each day by crowds present to support her, addressed Dogan in court: “You do not grasp. When will you acknowledge you raped me? It is illegal to rape an unaware woman. How could I have give you consent? At no time.”

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

The prosecutor, turning to the victim in court, said the defendant's refusal to take responsibility showed that: “Guilt has not shifted. The community is perhaps in the course of that, perhaps motivated by the collective awareness spurred by the publication of your ordeal.”

Sie said the defendant's claims of non-guilt showed how normalized violence was still common in society as part of “outdated” forms of “patriarchal control”. He said: “Now we must change rape culture to a ethos of permission.”

The prosecutor said to Dogan: “As long as you refuse to admit it, it’s not just a woman, it’s an entire sordid cultural framework that you are upholding.”

Defendant's Background

Dogan was born in Turkey and at the age of five relocated to the nation of France, where his father worked as a building manager. The evidence indicated that his father was violent and that Dogan began using drugs aged ten. When he was 17 he was caught by police for selling narcotics and his father kicked him out the residence. He spent time in prison for drug dealing in his early 20s and had worked as a builder but had faced periods of homelessness.

He was wed and had a son with special needs, who he was the principal carer for, as his spouse worked in a school canteen. The court heard his spouse did not know he had frequent extramarital activities beyond their marriage. His legal team said this was his strategy for managing with his stressful life. Dogan had informed a mental health expert that each year he sought transactional encounters on his special day. His legal representatives stated to the court he had joint inflammation caused by the stress of the initial proceedings.