A court in southern France has increased by a year the jail term of the only man who challenged his conviction for raping Gisèle Pelicot.
The 72-year-old retired grandmother was drugged unconscious by her then-husband Dominique for over a decade and raped by dozens of men he recruited on the internet.
Husamettin Dogan, 44, had argued he was innocent, despite graphic video footage shown in court of him penetrating a motionless Gisèle Pelicot.
But the court of appeal in Nîmes rejected his argument and extended his original nine-year jail term to 10 years. He was convicted of aggravated rape last December, during a trial in which 50 other men were convicted.
Public prosecutor Dominique Sié had asked the court to impose a 12-year term on Dogan, who said he himself had been a victim, “trapped” by Dominique Pelicot. The prosecutor told the court Dogan had been “unwilling to take responsibility” for a “massive act of destruction of a woman” that had denied her humanity.
Although Dogan was held in pre-trial detention ahead of last year’s trial, he has not spent time in jail since.
Police were able to track down the men who raped Gisèle because of the videos that Dominique Pelicot filmed during the rapes.
Of the 51 men handed jail terms, 17 initially lodged appeals only to withdraw them soon after.
Husamettin Dogan – a Turkish-born married father – was the only one who decided to take his appeal to court.
Like many of the other men convicted last December, Dogan’s defence was he could not be guilty of raping Gisèle because he did not realise she had been drugged by her husband against her will.
Proceedings in Nîmes were effectively a retrial but, unlike the initial trial last December, this case was judged by a jury made up of nine members of the public and three professional judges.
Evidence from the first trial was shown again, including videos of the rapes in which an unconscious Gisèle could be heard snoring and having no reaction despite the abuse she was subjected to.
Nevertheless, Dogan again denied any intention to rape her even though he acknowledged she was clearly a victim of her husband.
“I performed a sexual act, I never raped anyone,” he said. “For me, rape means forcing someone, tying them up, I don’t know… I am a victim.”
Gisèle Pelicot told the court this week “I am the only victim”, denying she had ever given her consent.
In an attempt to shift the blame on to Dominique Pelicot, Dogan also said that while at one point he had “suspicions” that something about the situation was not quite right, Pelicot had put him at ease. “This guy is a manipulator,” he said.
Pelicot – who was present in court as a witness – denied he had ever pretended his wife would be anything but unconscious.
All the men he recruited on chatrooms “were told she would be drugged”, Pelicot said, adding he had explicitly told Dogan he was looking for “someone to abuse my sleeping wife without her knowledge”.
Gisèle Pelicot’s decision to open up the original trial to the public and the media attracted worldwide attention on her story – but as soon as the verdicts came in she retreated back to private life.
This week was the first time she was seen in public since then.
When she took the stand on Wednesday she recalled the unexplained neurological symptoms and memory loss she had suffered for months, without realising they were the side effects of the drugs Pelicot had plied her with.
She again stressed she had no knowledge of what her husband subjected her to.
“The first time I saw [Dogan’s] face was when I saw the videos of him raping me,” she stated. “They are forever etched in my memory.”
“The first time around, this man never accepted to recognise that he had raped me. But I thought that over the course of a year he had gained some introspection,” she said.
Turning to Dogan, she added: “You don’t understand that this was rape. When will you admit that it’s a crime? I am ashamed for you.”
She also addressed the devastation that had engulfed her family since the trial.
Her daughter, Caroline Darian, maintains she too was drugged and abused by her father after photos showing her unconscious were found on Pelicot’s computer.
Ms Darian has since spoken about feeling unsupported by her mother. The two are reportedly no longer in contact and Ms Darian was not in court with Gisèle this week.
“My family is trying to rebuild itself however it can,” Gisèle said. “I hope [Caroline] finds the answers she is looking for. I hope one day we can find each other again.”
She also asked to stop being referred to as an icon. “I am an ordinary woman who dared to open up her trial,” she said. “I have become an icon against my will.”
As in the original trial, Gisèle ended her statement with a thought for other victims of rape – the majority of whom did not have the wealth of evidence that she had to bring her abusers to court.
“I want to say to them to never be ashamed of what was inflicted upon us, because it is not their fault,” she said.
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