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A defendant has been found guilty on higher court review of raping Gisèle Pelicot after she was sedated by her spouse – and has had his incarceration period extended to ten years.

Appeal Trial

Husamettin Dogan, forty-four, an out-of-work construction worker, who had challenged his initial guilty verdict last year, experienced a new trial this week at the Nîmes court of appeal.

A panel of four women and five men, joined by three judges, convicted Dogan on Thursday of raping Pelicot in her residence in the south of France in the morning of June 29, 2019.

The testimony revealed that Dogan, a family man, reached out to Gisèle Pelicot’s then husband, the husband, in an digital platform named “unbeknownst to her”, where the husband was recruiting men to come to his home to assault his wife once he had sedated her into a comatose state.

We trust the panel will affirm that in this nation, fundamental rights are also women’s rights – that consent is individual, not transferred,” declared Gisèle Pelicot’s attorney, her legal representative. “Agreement is obtained personally and not via a representative from a husband.”

Background

The husband, one of the worst sexual predators in modern French history, was handed a sentence to twenty years in prison last year for incapacitating his wife at the time and soliciting dozens of men to sexually assault her in her home in the Provence village of Mazan over a span of nearly ten years of their marriage.

Dozens of additional defendants were found culpable in a widely publicized trial last year, and the appellant was the only man to contest his verdict. He was originally handed a term to nine years in prison, a sentence raised on Thursday to 10 years.

The state's attorney, Dominique Sie, had stated he should serve 12 years, because he “stubbornly rejects to take any responsibility”.

Courtroom Details

The defendant had initially sent the husband sexually explicit photos and then traveled an hour from his village in Provence to rape Gisèle Pelicot, after telling his wife he was going out, the court heard.

Pelicot, who was brought from isolation in prison to briefly testify at the appeal trial, told the court that the accused had known his wife had been “incapacitated” and he said to men by phone: “I want someone to violate my wife after I’ve sedated her unbeknownst to her.”

The courtroom became a central issue for a wider discussion on sexual violence norms in society as the defendant continued to assert he was not guilty and had not committed rape, arguing that because the victim's husband had allowed him into the room, his conduct had been permissible.

The panel in the Nîmes appeals court was shown recorded footage of Gisèle Pelicot’s unresponsive form, sedated 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 court official said she had been at risk of death by suffocation. The state's case said there was no doubt that she had been unaware and had not consented.

Defendant's Statements

Dogan informed the court the footage were simply “sexual encounters” and disputed it was violation. He said what he did was “an intimate behavior”, not rape. He declared the court: “I never raped.” He said Gisèle Pelicot’s husband had brought him to the home, and therefore it was OK. He said he was deceived by the husband. “I tried to halt,” Dogan stated to the court. “I continued because he convinced me.”

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

Pelicot's Words

The victim, who was cheered upon leaving court each day by onlookers gathered to support her, told Dogan in court: “You haven’t understood. When are you going to recognise you raped me? It is illegal to assault an unconscious woman. When did I ever give you agreement? At no time.”

The victim, 72, became an international feminist hero after she waived her right to anonymity in the trial last year when she said: “The shame should shift.”

Legal Commentary

The prosecutor, speaking to Gisèle Pelicot in court, said the defendant's failure to take blame showed that: “Shame has not yet changed sides. The community is perhaps in the course of that, perhaps propelled by the public consciousness brought by the publication of your case.”

Sie said Dogan’s claims of blamelessness showed how rape culture was still common in society as part of “outdated” forms of “patriarchal control”. He said: “We need to change rape culture to a society based on agreement.”

The prosecutor told Dogan: “While you deny it, it’s not just a individual, it’s an whole unpleasant societal structure that you are upholding.”

Defendant's Background

Dogan was born in Turkey and at the age of 5 moved to France, where his parent worked as a caretaker. The court heard that his parent was violent and that Dogan began smoking cannabis at the age of ten. When Dogan was seventeen he was stopped by police for drug trafficking and his parent kicked him out of home. He was incarcerated in prison for trafficking in his young adulthood and had worked as a builder but had undergone periods of homelessness.

He was wed and had a child with special needs, who he was the principal carer for, as his spouse worked in a school canteen. The testimony revealed his wife did not know he had repeated intimate relations outside their marriage. His legal team said this was his method of dealing with his challenging existence. Dogan had informed a evaluator that each year he looked for paid sex on his special day. His lawyers stated to the court he had joint inflammation caused by the stress of the initial proceedings.