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A man was declared guilty on appeal of raping Gisele Pelicot following she was sedated by her spouse – and has had his incarceration period raised to ten years.

Retrial Proceedings

Husamettin Dogan, forty-four, an unemployed builder, who had challenged his initial guilty verdict last year, faced a retrial this week at the appeals court in Nîmes.

A panel of five men and four women, joined by three judges, found Dogan guilty on Thursday of sexually assaulting Pelicot in her bedroom in Provence in the morning of June 29, 2019.

The evidence showed that the accused, a married father, reached out to the victim's spouse, the husband, in an online chatroom called “unbeknownst to her”, where the husband was recruiting men to enter his residence to rape his wife once he had rendered her unconscious into a unconscious state.

“We hope the court will declare that in this nation, human rights are also rights of women – that consent is personal, not delegated,” declared the victim's attorney, Antoine Camus. “Permission is secured directly and not through someone else from a husband.”

Background

The husband, a notorious sexual predators in recent French history, was sentenced to two decades in prison last year for sedating his wife at the time and inviting multiple perpetrators to rape her in her home in the Provence village of Mazan over a span of nearly ten years of their marriage.

Numerous other individuals were found convicted in a widely publicized trial last year, and Dogan was the only man to challenge his verdict. He was initially handed a term to nine years in prison, a sentence enhanced on Thursday to a decade.

The chief prosecutor, Dominique Sie, had stated he should serve 12 years, because he “completely denies to take any blame”.

Testimony and Proof

Dogan had initially sent Dominique Pelicot inappropriate pictures and then driven an hour from his village in Provence to rape the victim, after informing his wife he was stepping out, the testimony revealed.

The ex-husband, who was transported from solitary confinement in prison to temporarily testify at the retrial, stated to the court that the accused had known his wife had been “incapacitated” and he said to men by phone: “I seek someone to violate my wife after I’ve rendered her unconscious unbeknownst to her.”

The trial became a central issue for a larger conversation on societal attitudes in society as the defendant continued to assert he was blameless and had not perpetrated assault, stating that because the victim's husband had welcomed him into the residence, his behavior had been justifiable.

The jury in the higher court was displayed recorded footage of the victim's limp body, unconscious and snoring in a unconscious condition, while a grinning Dogan engaged in violation on several occasions over a duration of what police said was several hours. The judge said she had been at peril of death by suffocation. The prosecution said there was absolute certainty that she had been unconscious and had not consented.

Accused's Testimony

Dogan stated to the court the footage were simply “intimate moments” and disputed it was assault. He said what he did was “a sexual act”, not rape. He declared the court: “I did not commit rape.” He said Gisèle Pelicot’s husband had invited him to the house, and therefore it was OK. He said he was manipulated by the husband. “I attempted to cease,” the accused told the court. “I proceeded because he reassured me.”

Asked if he wanted to make a final statement to the court, Dogan said: “I did not intend to harm that individual.”

Victim's Response

The survivor, who was cheered upon leaving court each day by crowds present to stand with her, said to Dogan in court: “You haven’t understood. When will you acknowledge you raped me? It’s a crime to rape an unconscious woman. How could I have give you agreement? Never.”

The victim, 72, became an symbol of resistance after she gave up her right to anonymity in the trial last year when she said: “Shame must change sides.”

Legal Commentary

The prosecutor, speaking to Gisèle Pelicot in court, said Dogan’s unwillingness to take accountability showed that: “Guilt has not shifted. The community is maybe in the course of that, maybe driven by the public consciousness brought by the exposure of your situation.”

The prosecutor said Dogan’s claims of blamelessness showed how normalized violence was still widespread in society as part of “outdated” forms of “male domination”. He said: “We need to change the culture of violence to a society based on agreement.”

Sie told Dogan: “As long as you reject it, it’s not just a person, it’s an complete disturbing social system that you are endorsing.”

Defendant's Background

The accused was born in the country of Turkey and at the age of 5 relocated to France, where his father worked as a concierge. The evidence indicated that his father was violent and that Dogan began smoking cannabis aged ten. When Dogan was 17 he was stopped by authorities for drug trafficking and his father forced him to leave the family house. He served time in prison for narcotics offenses in his young adulthood and had worked as a laborer but had experienced periods of being unhoused.

He was wed and had a son with Down’s syndrome, who he was the main caregiver for, as his wife worked in a educational cafeteria. The testimony revealed his wife did not know he had frequent intimate relations outside their marriage. His legal team said this was his method of dealing with his stressful life. Dogan had stated to a evaluator that annually he looked for transactional encounters on his birthday. His attorneys informed the court he had joint inflammation resulting from the pressure of the initial proceedings.