“I confess all the facts of which I am accused, without exceptions”: the voice of Dominique Pelicotthe man accused of drugging his wife for 10 years to rape her and have her raped by dozens of men, resounds in the courtroom in Avignon, in the south of France.
In silence, he continues: “I’m a rapist”. Then he turns to the dock, where some of the 50 co-defendants with him in the trial are sitting, and continues: “I am like them,” he says, while a murmur of disapproval rises from the group. They all knew my wife’s condition before coming, they knew everything, they can’t say no.
Seventy-one years old, Dominique Pelicot then adds, lowering his voice a little, referring to his now ex-wife: “Gisèle didn’t deserve it”. Pelicot returned to court as a defendant after a week of being absent for health reasons. He had been ill from a kidney stone and an infection with complications to his prostate. Last night, doctors gave the green light for his presence in court, albeit with spaced-out questioning.
He is expected to testify before the judges in the coming days in this trial that began at the beginning of the month and is scheduled to run until mid-December. The man documented all the rapes in his computer files. Today’s confession did not include any further explanations or details of his behavior. The moment when the other defendants, men aged between 26 and 74, will speak is also eagerly awaited, only some of whom deny the rape charge.
The incredible story, with the wife drugged by her husband for 10 years, until 2020, and “proposed” to other men who raped her in turn without compensation, came to light only when the man was stopped while he was filming a video that showed three women under their skirts in a shopping center.
By combing through his computer, investigators discovered files recorded over 10 years with rapes and violence of all kinds on his wife, now his ex-wife, Gisèle, all filmed in the house where the couple lived, in Mazan. “Even if it seems paradoxical,” Pelicot said today in court, “I have never considered my wife as an object, even if unfortunately the videos show the opposite. I regret what I have done, I ask for forgiveness, even if what I have done is unforgivable”. Atrocious appendix to today’s hearing, the exchange of accusations between Pelicot and his daughter, who since the facts emerged is convinced that she too was drugged by her father, as happened to her mother. Pelicot, accused by his daughter of lying, continued to deny despite a photo found on his daughter’s computer, naked: “I have never touched, drugged or taken photos of my daughter. My daughter is like my grandchildren to me, they are jewels, you don’t touch them.”