🔗 Share this article

A man was declared guilty on higher court review of sexually assaulting Gisèle Pelicot after she was rendered comatose by her spouse – and has had his prison sentence raised to 10 years.

Higher Court Case

Husamettin Dogan, 44, an unemployed builder, who had contested his initial guilty verdict last year, faced a retrial this week at the appeals court in Nîmes.

A panel of nine jurors, sitting with three judges, ruled against Dogan on Thursday of sexually assaulting Pelicot in her residence in Provence in the morning of June 29, 2019.

The evidence showed that Dogan, a family man, connected with Gisèle Pelicot’s then husband, Dominique Pelicot, in an online chatroom named “unbeknownst to her”, where Pelicot was looking for men to visit his house to assault his wife once he had rendered her unconscious into a comatose state.

“We hope the jury will say loud and clear that in this nation, human rights are also rights of women – that agreement is personal, not given by another,” declared the victim's lawyer, her legal representative. “Agreement is secured personally and not via a representative from a spouse.”

Background

The ex-husband, one of the worst sex offenders in France's contemporary records, was sentenced to two decades in prison last year for drugging his wife at the time and bringing in 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.

Numerous other individuals were found culpable in a widely publicized trial last year, and Dogan was the sole individual to appeal against his conviction. He was first given a sentence to 9 years in prison, a sentence raised on Thursday to a decade.

The lead state prosecutor, Dominique Sie, had contended he should serve twelve years, because he “stubbornly rejects to take any blame”.

Courtroom Details

Dogan had initially sent the husband graphic images and then traveled an hour from his village in the region to rape Gisèle Pelicot, after notifying his wife he was stepping out, the evidence indicated.

Pelicot, who was brought from segregation in prison to briefly provide testimony at the hearing, informed the court that Dogan had understood his wife had been “sedated” and he communicated to men by phone: “I want someone to abuse my wife after I’ve sedated her without her knowledge.”

The courtroom became a central issue 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 invited him into the room, his actions had been acceptable.

The panel in the Nîmes appeals court was presented with recorded footage of the victim's limp body, comatose and breathing heavily in a unconscious condition, while a grinning Dogan engaged in violation repeatedly over a timeframe of what police said was three and a half hours. The court official said she had been at risk of fatal outcome by choking. The state's case said there was no doubt that she had been unaware and had not agreed.

Dogan's Claims

Dogan stated to the court the recordings were simply “intimate moments” and rejected it was rape. He said what he did was “a sexual act”, not assault. He stated the court: “I am innocent of assault.” He said the victim's husband had brought him to the house, and therefore it was permissible. He said he was deceived by Dominique Pelicot. “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, Dogan said: “I never wanted to harm that individual.”

Survivor's Statement

Gisèle Pelicot, who was cheered upon departing the trial each day by supporters assembled to support her, told Dogan in court: “You fail to comprehend. When will you acknowledge you assaulted me? It’s a crime to assault an incapacitated woman. At what point did I give you permission? Never.”

The victim, 72, became an symbol of resistance after she relinquished her right to anonymity in the trial last year when she said: “Shame must change sides.”

Prosecutor's Remarks

The prosecutor, addressing the victim in court, said the defendant's refusal to take responsibility showed that: “Guilt has not shifted. The community is perhaps in the process of that, possibly driven by the collective awareness resulting from the publication of your case.”

Sie said the defendant's claims of non-guilt showed how normalized violence was still prevalent in society as part of “archaic” forms of “gender-based power”. He said: “It is imperative to change rape culture to a society based on agreement.”

The prosecutor addressed Dogan: “As long as you refuse to admit it, it’s not just a individual, it’s an entire disturbing social system that you are supporting.”

Defendant's Background

The accused was born in the country of Turkey and at the age of five came to the nation of France, where his parent worked as a building manager. The court heard that his parent was aggressive and that the defendant began consuming marijuana aged 10. When he was 17 he was stopped by police for drug trafficking and his father evicted him the family house. He served time in prison for trafficking in his twenties 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 frequent sexual encounters outside their union. His defence said this was his way of coping with his stressful life. Dogan had stated to a evaluator that annually he looked for transactional encounters on his special day. His attorneys stated to the court he had arthritis resulting from the stress of the first trial.