An individual has been found guilty on appeal of raping Gisele Pelicot following she was rendered comatose by her spouse – and has had his prison sentence extended to 10 years.
Husamettin Dogan, 44, an out-of-work construction worker, who had appealed his first conviction last year, experienced a retrial this week at the appeals court in Nîmes.
A panel of four women and five men, joined by three judges, ruled against Dogan on Thursday of sexually assaulting the victim in her residence in the south of France in the morning of June 29, 2019.
The court heard that the accused, a family man, reached out to the victim's then husband, Dominique Pelicot, in an online chatroom named “unbeknownst to her”, where the husband was seeking men to come to his home to assault his wife once he had sedated her into a deep sleep.
We expect the jury will say loud and clear that in this society, fundamental rights are also women’s rights – that agreement is personal, not given by another,” said the victim's attorney, Antoine Camus. “Consent is secured personally and not by proxy from a spouse.”
The ex-husband, one of the worst sex offenders in France's contemporary records, was given a prison term to 20 years in prison last year for incapacitating his wife at the time and inviting numerous individuals to sexually assault her in her home in the Provence village of the village of Mazan over a span of almost a decade of their union.
Fifty other men were found convicted in a high-profile trial last year, and Dogan was the sole individual to contest his verdict. He was initially given a sentence to nine years in prison, a punishment increased on Thursday to 10 years.
The chief prosecutor, Dominique Sie, had stated he should serve 12 years, because he “completely denies to take any accountability”.
The defendant had first sent Dominique Pelicot graphic images and then traveled an hour from his residence in Provence to rape Gisèle Pelicot, after informing his wife he was leaving, the court heard.
The ex-husband, who was transported from isolation in prison to temporarily give evidence at the appeal trial, told the court that Dogan had been aware his wife had been “sedated” and he communicated to men by phone: “I’m looking for someone to violate my wife after I’ve rendered her unconscious without her knowledge.”
The courtroom became a central issue for a wider discussion on societal attitudes in society as Dogan continued to assert he was innocent and had not engaged in violation, arguing that because the victim's husband had allowed him into the bedroom, his behavior had been permissible.
The panel in the higher court was shown recorded footage of the victim's limp body, unconscious and snoring in a comatose state, while a grinning the perpetrator performed assault on several occasions over a period of what investigators stated was 3.5 hours. The judge said she had been at peril of death by choking. The state's case said there was absolute certainty that she had been unaware and had not consented.
Dogan told the court the recordings were simply “sex scenes” and denied it was rape. He said what he did was “an intimate behavior”, not rape. He told the court: “I did not commit rape.” He said the victim's husband had invited him to the house, and therefore it was OK. He said he was influenced by Dominique Pelicot. “I tried to halt,” Dogan stated to the court. “I proceeded because he convinced me.”
Questioned if he wanted to make a final statement to the court, the defendant said: “I never wanted to hurt that lady.”
The victim, who was cheered upon departing the trial each day by crowds gathered to support her, told Dogan in court: “You do not grasp. When are you going to recognise you violated me? It is illegal to assault an unconscious woman. How could I have give you consent? Never.”
The victim, 72, became an international feminist hero after she gave up her right to confidentiality in the trial last year when she said: “Shame must change sides.”
The prosecutor, speaking to the victim in court, said Dogan’s refusal to take accountability showed that: “Guilt has not shifted. The community is maybe in the process of that, maybe propelled by the societal understanding brought by the exposure of your situation.”
Sie said the defendant's claims of blamelessness showed how normalized violence was still common in society as part of “old-fashioned” forms of “patriarchal control”. He said: “Now we must change the culture of violence to a society based on agreement.”
Sie said to Dogan: “While you reject it, it’s not just a individual, it’s an complete disturbing social system that you are upholding.”
The accused was born in Turkey and at the age of 5 moved to the nation of France, where his parent worked as a caretaker. The evidence indicated that his parent was violent and that Dogan began smoking cannabis aged 10. When Dogan was 17 he was stopped by authorities for selling narcotics and his father evicted him of home. He served time in prison for drug dealing in his early 20s and had worked as a construction worker but had faced periods of living on the streets.
He was wed and had a child with a genetic condition, who he was the primary guardian for, as his spouse worked in a institution's dining hall. The evidence showed his wife did not know he had frequent intimate relations beyond their marriage. His defence said this was his strategy for managing with his difficult circumstances. Dogan had stated to a court psychologist that each year he sought paid sex on his special day. His legal representatives told the court he had joint inflammation caused by the anxiety of the original case.
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