🔗 Share this article

An individual has been found guilty on higher court review of raping Gisele Pelicot after she was drugged unconscious by her spouse – and received his incarceration period increased to ten years.

Appeal Trial

Dogan, forty-four, an unemployed builder, who had contested his first conviction last year, underwent a new trial this week at the Nîmes court of appeal.

A jury of five men and four women, sitting with three judges, ruled against Dogan on Thursday of sexually assaulting the victim in her home in the south of France in the morning of 29 June 2019.

The court heard that Dogan, a family man, connected with the victim's spouse, Dominique Pelicot, in an online chatroom named “without her knowledge”, where the husband was recruiting men to enter his residence to rape his wife after he had drugged her into a deep sleep.

We expect the jury will affirm that in this society, fundamental rights are also rights of women – that agreement is individual, not delegated,” said the victim's lawyer, Antoine Camus. “Permission is secured personally and not by proxy from a husband.”

Background

The ex-husband, among the most severe sex offenders in France's contemporary records, was given a prison term to 20 years in prison last year for sedating his spouse and inviting dozens of men to sexually assault her in her home in the Provence village of Mazan over a period of almost a decade of their union.

Fifty other men were found guilty in a notable trial last year, and the appellant was the sole individual to contest his conviction. He was originally sentenced to nine years in prison, a penalty increased on Thursday to ten years.

The lead state prosecutor, the prosecutor, had stated he should serve 12 years, because he “absolutely refuses to take any blame”.

Courtroom Details

The defendant had first sent Dominique Pelicot inappropriate pictures and then driven an hour from his village in Provence to assault Gisèle Pelicot, after informing his wife he was going out, the court heard.

Pelicot, who was transported from solitary confinement in prison to temporarily provide testimony at the retrial, told the court that the accused had been aware his wife had been “sedated” and he said to men by phone: “I want someone to violate my wife after I’ve put her to sleep unbeknownst to her.”

The trial became a central issue for a wider discussion on rape culture in society as the defendant continued to assert he was innocent and had not committed rape, stating that because Gisèle Pelicot’s husband had allowed him into the room, his conduct had been justifiable.

The panel in the higher court was shown video evidence of the victim's unconscious figure, unconscious and breathing heavily in a deep sleep, while a grinning the perpetrator engaged in violation multiple times over a period of what authorities reported was several hours. The presiding judge said she had been at peril of fatal outcome by asphyxiation. The prosecution said there was no question that she had been unconscious and had not agreed.

Dogan's Claims

The defendant informed the court the recordings were simply “sexual encounters” and rejected it was assault. He said what he did was “an intimate behavior”, not rape. He declared the court: “I did not commit rape.” He said the victim's husband had invited him to the home, and therefore it was permissible. He said he was manipulated by the husband. “I wanted to stop,” the accused stated to the court. “I carried on because he persuaded me.”

Inquired if he wanted to make a last words to the court, the defendant said: “I did not intend to injure that woman.”

Survivor's Statement

The survivor, who was applauded upon leaving court each day by onlookers present to stand with her, said to Dogan in court: “You do not grasp. When will you admit you violated me? It is unlawful to assault an incapacitated woman. When did I ever give you permission? Never.”

Gisèle Pelicot, seventy-two, became an international feminist hero after she waived her right to confidentiality in the trial last year when she said: “The shame should shift.”

Prosecutor's Remarks

The prosecutor, addressing Gisèle Pelicot in court, said the defendant's unwillingness to take responsibility showed that: “The shame remains. The community is possibly in the midst of that, maybe driven by the societal understanding spurred by the revelation of your case.”

Sie said the defendant's claims of non-guilt showed how normalized violence was still common in society as part of “archaic” forms of “gender-based power”. He said: “We need to change the culture of violence to a culture of consent.”

Sie said to the defendant: “While you refuse to admit it, it’s not just a person, it’s an complete unpleasant social system that you are supporting.”

Biographical Details

The accused was originated from the country of Turkey and at the age of five relocated to the nation of France, where his father worked as a building manager. The testimony revealed that his parent was abusive and that Dogan began consuming marijuana at the age of ten. When he was seventeen he was apprehended by authorities for drug trafficking and his parent kicked him out the family house. He was incarcerated in prison for drug dealing in his young adulthood and had worked as a laborer but had faced periods of being unhoused.

He was married and had a child with Down’s syndrome, who he was the principal carer for, as his spouse worked in a institution's dining hall. The evidence showed his spouse did not know he had repeated intimate relations outside their marriage. His defence said this was his strategy for managing with his difficult circumstances. The defendant had informed a evaluator that each year he sought paid sex on his special day. His legal representatives stated to the court he had a medical condition triggered by the stress of the first trial.