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A defendant has been found guilty on appeal of sexually assaulting Gisèle Pelicot after she was sedated by her husband – and received his prison sentence raised to a decade.

Retrial Proceedings

Husamettin Dogan, 44, an unemployed builder, who had appealed his first conviction last year, faced a new trial this week at the appeals court in Nîmes.

A jury of nine jurors, joined by three judges, found Dogan guilty on Thursday of sexually assaulting Pelicot in her home in the south of France in the morning of June 29, 2019.

The testimony revealed that the accused, a family man, made contact with the victim's husband at the time, Dominique Pelicot, in an digital platform titled “unbeknownst to her”, where the husband was recruiting men to visit his house to rape his wife once he had drugged her into a comatose state.

We expect the jury will affirm that in this nation, fundamental rights are also women’s rights – that consent is individual, not given by another,” stated the victim's lawyer, Antoine Camus. “Consent is obtained directly and not by proxy from a husband.”

Background

The ex-husband, among the most severe sexual predators in France's contemporary records, was sentenced to twenty years in prison last year for drugging his spouse and soliciting multiple perpetrators to rape her in her home in the Provence village of Mazan over a span of nearly ten years of their marriage.

Fifty other men were found guilty in a widely publicized trial last year, and Dogan was the single defendant to appeal against his sentence. He was initially handed a term to nine years in prison, a penalty enhanced on Thursday to 10 years.

The chief prosecutor, the prosecutor, had argued he should serve 12 years, because he “absolutely refuses to take any responsibility”.

Courtroom Details

The defendant had first sent Dominique Pelicot sexually explicit photos and then traveled an hour from his village in Provence to assault Gisèle Pelicot, after informing his wife he was going out, the evidence indicated.

Pelicot, who was transported from solitary confinement in prison to briefly provide testimony at the hearing, stated to the court that the accused had known his wife had been “incapacitated” and he communicated to men by phone: “I’m looking for someone to abuse my wife after I’ve sedated her without her knowledge.”

The proceedings became a key topic for a larger conversation on rape culture in society as the defendant continued to say he was blameless and had not committed rape, arguing that because the victim's husband had invited him into the bedroom, his conduct had been permissible.

The jury in the higher court was displayed video evidence of the victim's unresponsive form, sedated and snoring in a deep sleep, while a smiling the perpetrator engaged in violation on several occasions over a duration of what investigators stated was 3.5 hours. The court official said she had been at danger of fatal outcome by suffocation. The state's case said there was absolute certainty that she had been unconscious and had not given permission.

Dogan's Claims

The defendant told the court the footage were simply “intimate moments” and rejected it was assault. He said what he did was “an intimate behavior”, not rape. He told the court: “I am innocent of assault.” He said Gisèle Pelicot’s husband had invited him to the house, and therefore it was permissible. He said he was manipulated by Dominique Pelicot. “I wanted to stop,” Dogan told the court. “I continued because he persuaded me.”

Asked if he wanted to make a last words to the court, the defendant said: “I had no desire to injure that lady.”

Victim's Response

The survivor, who was supported upon departing the trial each day by supporters present to back her, addressed the defendant in court: “You do not grasp. When will you admit you raped me? It is illegal to rape an unconscious woman. At what point did I give you agreement? At no time.”

Gisèle Pelicot, 72, became an international feminist hero after she relinquished her right to anonymity in the trial last year when she said: “Shame must change sides.”

Legal Commentary

Sie, speaking to Gisèle Pelicot in court, said Dogan’s failure to take accountability showed that: “The shame remains. The public is perhaps in the midst of that, maybe driven by the collective awareness resulting from the revelation of your situation.”

The prosecutor said Dogan’s claims of non-guilt showed how normalized violence was still prevalent in society as part of “outdated” forms of “patriarchal control”. He said: “Now we must change the culture of violence to a ethos of permission.”

The prosecutor addressed the defendant: “While you deny it, it’s not just a individual, it’s an whole unpleasant cultural framework that you are supporting.”

Biographical Details

The accused was born in Turkey and at the age of 5 relocated to the nation of France, where his father worked as a building manager. The court heard that his parent was violent and that Dogan began smoking cannabis aged 10. When Dogan was seventeen he was apprehended by police for drug trafficking and his parent kicked him out the residence. He was incarcerated in prison for narcotics offenses in his twenties and had worked as a construction worker but had faced periods of living on the streets.

He was married and had a child with special needs, who he was the main caregiver for, as his wife worked in a educational cafeteria. The court heard his spouse did not know he had repeated sexual encounters beyond their union. His defence said this was his strategy for managing with his challenging existence. Dogan had informed a evaluator that each year he engaged in transactional encounters on his special day. His lawyers told the court he had a medical condition caused by the pressure of the first trial.