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An individual was convicted on higher court review of raping Gisèle Pelicot following she was rendered comatose by her husband – and received his incarceration period raised to a decade.

Higher Court Case

Dogan, forty-four, an out-of-work construction worker, who had challenged his first conviction last year, experienced a retrial this week at the appeals court in Nîmes.

A panel of four women and five men, accompanied by three judges, found Dogan guilty on Thursday of sexually assaulting the victim in her bedroom in the south of France in the early hours of 29 June 2019.

The court heard that Dogan, a married father, made contact with Gisèle Pelicot’s then husband, the husband, in an online chatroom named “unbeknownst to her”, where Pelicot was recruiting men to come to his home to assault his wife after he had drugged her into a deep sleep.

We expect the panel will affirm that in this nation, human rights are also rights of women – that permission is personal, not transferred,” declared Gisèle Pelicot’s attorney, her legal representative. “Permission is secured personally and not via a representative from a husband.”

Background

The ex-husband, one of the worst sex offenders in modern French history, was handed a sentence to twenty years in prison last year for incapacitating his then wife and soliciting dozens of men to rape her in her home in the town of the village of Mazan over a duration of almost a decade of their marriage.

Fifty other men were found convicted in a widely publicized trial last year, and the appellant was the single defendant to contest his verdict. He was first sentenced to 9 years in prison, a penalty raised on Thursday to a decade.

The chief prosecutor, the prosecutor, had contended he should serve 12 years, because he “stubbornly rejects to take any blame”.

Testimony and Proof

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

The ex-husband, who was transported from isolation in prison to temporarily testify at the hearing, stated to the court that the accused had known his wife had been “drugged” and he told to men by phone: “I’m looking for someone to violate my wife after I’ve rendered her unconscious unbeknownst to her.”

The trial became a key topic for a broader debate on rape culture in society as the defendant continued to assert he was innocent and had not perpetrated assault, contending 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 presented with recorded footage of the victim's unconscious figure, sedated and breathing heavily in a deep sleep, while a grinning Dogan engaged in violation on several occasions over a timeframe of what authorities reported was 3.5 hours. The presiding judge said she had been at peril of death by choking. The prosecution said there was no doubt that she had been unconscious and had not consented.

Accused's Testimony

The defendant informed the court the videos were simply “intimate moments” and rejected it was assault. He said what he did was “a sexual act”, not rape. He stated the court: “I did not commit rape.” He said Gisèle Pelicot’s husband had invited him to the residence, and therefore it was OK. He said he was deceived by Dominique Pelicot. “I tried to halt,” the accused told the court. “I continued because he reassured me.”

Questioned if he wanted to make a last words to the court, the defendant said: “I never wanted to hurt that individual.”

Victim's Response

Gisèle Pelicot, who was cheered upon departing the trial each day by supporters present to back her, said to the defendant in court: “You haven’t understood. When will you admit you assaulted me? It’s a crime to assault an unaware woman. How could I have give you permission? At no time.”

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

State's Argument

The prosecutor, addressing the victim in court, said Dogan’s unwillingness to take responsibility showed that: “Guilt has not shifted. The public is perhaps in the process of that, perhaps propelled by the collective awareness resulting from the publication of your ordeal.”

Sie said the defendant's claims of blamelessness showed how normalized violence was still widespread in society as part of “old-fashioned” forms of “male domination”. He said: “We need to change rape culture to a ethos of permission.”

The prosecutor addressed the defendant: “For as much as you reject it, it’s not just a woman, it’s an complete disturbing societal structure that you are endorsing.”

Biographical Details

The accused was born in the country of Turkey and at the age of five relocated to the nation of France, where his parent worked as a caretaker. The court heard that his parent was violent and that Dogan began using drugs at the age of 10. When Dogan was seventeen he was caught by authorities for drug trafficking and his parent evicted him of home. He spent time in prison for narcotics offenses in his young adulthood and had worked as a construction worker but had faced periods of being unhoused.

He was wed and had a son with Down’s syndrome, who he was the main caregiver for, as his wife worked in a institution's dining hall. The testimony revealed his wife did not know he had frequent intimate relations outside their union. His legal team said this was his way of coping with his stressful life. Dogan had told a evaluator that each year he engaged in paid sex on his birthday. His legal representatives told the court he had joint inflammation caused by the pressure of the first trial.