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A man has been found guilty on higher court review of raping Gisele Pelicot following she was drugged unconscious by her spouse – and was given his prison sentence raised to a decade.

Higher Court Case

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

A panel of nine jurors, sitting with three judges, convicted Dogan on Thursday of raping the victim in her residence in southern France in the early hours of 29 June 2019.

The court heard that the accused, a married father, connected with Gisèle Pelicot’s husband at the time, the husband, in an online chatroom named “without her consent”, where Pelicot was seeking men to enter his residence to assault his wife after he had sedated her into a deep sleep.

We trust the panel will affirm that in this nation, human rights are also rights of women – that agreement is individual, not delegated,” declared the victim's attorney, Antoine Camus. “Permission is received directly and not via a representative from a spouse.”

Background

The husband, a notorious sexual predators in recent French history, was handed a sentence to 20 years in prison last year for drugging his wife at the time and bringing in numerous individuals to sexually assault her in her home in the community of Mazan over a duration of almost a decade of their union.

Fifty other men were found guilty in a high-profile trial last year, and the appellant was the only man to contest his conviction. He was originally given a sentence to nine years in prison, a punishment increased on Thursday to ten years.

The state's attorney, the prosecutor, had contended he should serve 12 years, because he “stubbornly rejects to take any responsibility”.

Evidence Presented

Dogan had first sent the husband inappropriate pictures and then traveled an hour from his residence in the region to assault the victim, after notifying his wife he was going out, the testimony revealed.

Pelicot, who was transported from solitary confinement in prison to briefly give evidence at the appeal trial, stated to the court that the accused had been aware his wife had been “incapacitated” and he said to men by phone: “I’m looking for someone to violate my wife after I’ve put her to sleep without her knowledge.”

The courtroom became a key topic for a larger conversation on rape culture in society as Dogan continued to say he was blameless and had not perpetrated assault, arguing that because the victim's husband had welcomed him into the bedroom, his conduct had been acceptable.

The panel in the higher court was presented with recorded footage of the victim's unresponsive form, sedated and snoring in a deep sleep, while a smiling Dogan committed rape on several occasions over a duration of what authorities reported was several hours. The court official said she had been at risk of death by suffocation. The state prosecution said there was no doubt that she had been incapacitated 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 assault. He stated the court: “I never raped.” He said the victim's husband had brought him to the house, and therefore it was OK. He said he was manipulated by Dominique Pelicot. “I tried to halt,” the accused told the court. “I carried on because he reassured me.”

Questioned if he wanted to make a last words to the court, Dogan said: “I did not intend to hurt that individual.”

Pelicot's Words

Gisèle Pelicot, who was supported upon exiting the courtroom each day by crowds present to stand with her, said to the defendant in court: “You do not grasp. When will you acknowledge you assaulted me? It’s a crime to assault an unconscious woman. How could I have give you agreement? At no time.”

The victim, seventy-two, became an international feminist hero after she waived her right to privacy in the trial last year when she said: “Guilt ought to transfer.”

Prosecutor's Remarks

Sie, turning to the victim in court, said the defendant's refusal to take blame showed that: “Guilt has not shifted. The public is possibly in the course of that, maybe propelled by the collective awareness spurred by the publication of your case.”

The prosecutor said Dogan’s claims of blamelessness showed how societal tolerance was still common in society as part of “archaic” forms of “patriarchal control”. He said: “We need to change the culture of violence to a culture of consent.”

The prosecutor said to Dogan: “For as much as you reject it, it’s not just a individual, it’s an whole unpleasant social system that you are supporting.”

Defendant's Background

The accused was born in Turkey and at the age of five came to the nation of France, where his parent worked as a caretaker. The court heard that his parent was aggressive and that Dogan began consuming marijuana at the age of 10. When he was 17 he was caught by police for selling narcotics and his father forced him to leave of home. He was incarcerated in prison for trafficking in his twenties and had worked as a construction worker but had faced periods of homelessness.

He was married and had a child with Down’s syndrome, who he was the principal carer for, as his wife worked in a institution's dining hall. The court heard his wife did not know he had frequent extramarital activities beyond their union. His defence said this was his strategy for managing with his difficult circumstances. Dogan had told a evaluator that each year he engaged in paid sex on his birthday. His lawyers told the court he had a medical condition triggered by the anxiety of the initial proceedings.