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NÎMES, France (CN) — On Tuesday, the man convicted of drugging and raping his ex-wife Gisèle Pelicotand inviting at least 72 strangers to do the same was escorted into a glass-walled box in the Nîmes appeals court, flanked by four policemen.
“We lived together for 50 years, 40 impeccable ones and 10 miserable ones,” Dominique Pelicot told the full French courtroom as Gisèle Pelicot watched from across the room, on the other side of the glass. “After 40 years, you have confidence, it’s easy, the person in front of you doesn’t see the devil.”
From roughly 2010-2020, Dominique Pelicot used a website that has since been dismantled to invite strangers over to the couple’s home in Mazan, a southern French city with 6,000 inhabitants. They would find Gisèle Pelicot undressed, drugged and unconscious in the couple’s bedroom.
He filmed at least 72 men sexually assaulting her; the footage was found on his hard drive when he was under investigation for filming up women’s skirts in a supermarket, and led to 51 convictions that were delivered in Dec. 2024 after a three-month-long trial. He was given the maximum sentence of 20 years. Twenty men are thought to still be at large.
As the hearings unfolded, Gisèle Pelicot became an icon. She waived her right to anonymity to make the trial public in an effort to shift the shame from the victim to the perpetrators. The result shed a global spotlight on consent, assault and the emotional turmoil that victims face in trial. By its end, people would wait outside of the Avignon Judicial Court for hours, just to catch a glimpse of her.
On Tuesday, roughly 100 people crowded outside of the Nîmes appeal court, cheering and chanting her name as she exited. She smiled.
Husamettin Dogan, a 44-year-old construction worker, was one of the men convicted of rape and sentenced to nine years behind bars. Throughout the trial, he maintained that he never intended to assault Gisèle Pelicot and tried to flip the script, claiming he was the real victim of her ex-husband’s manipulation.
Video footage shows Dogan penetrating an unconscious Gisèle Pelicot vaginally five times, and orally three times over the course of two to three hours. Now, he’s the only man challenging the verdict in an appeal set to run through Thursday, after 16 others dropped their appeals.
Dominique Pelicot was extracted from solitary confinement to testify.
“I told him I was looking for someone to abuse my wife, who I drugged,” Pelicot told the courtroom on Tuesday. “No tobacco, no perfume, no violence, it was going to be filmed … I gave him a whole bunch of things so there cannot be doubt cast.”
Pelicot maintained that Dogan — who has battled alcohol addiction, and went through a period of drinking a bottle of whiskey a day — was not drunk when he arrived at the house. Dominique Pelicot said that the two talked as little as possible and as quietly as possible when they assaulted Gisèle Pelicot.
Dogan has consistently argued that he thought he was taking part in the “sex game” of a libertine couple where the woman pretends to be sleeping.
“I never said that,” Pelicot asserted on Tuesday.
The testimony turned emotional when Dominique Pelicot invoked his family.
“People tell me I’m not empathetic,” he said. “I’ve spent my life helping others, even my children can’t say otherwise.”
The Pelicots’ son, Florian, watched from across the room, sitting next to his mother. His hands were folded together against his chin, and he did not take his eyes off of his father.
“I know what I did and I’m paying for it,” Dominique Pelicot added. He started to cry. “I’ve been in solitary confinement for a year … Today, all I have left is reading and writing, that’s what helps me survive.
When Silvie Menvielle, one of Dogan’s lawyers, started questioning Pelicot, both began to raise their voices. Menvielle brought up how, before he was convicted, he didn’t believe marital rape existed. He said he would refuse to answer questions about last year’s trial, which had already been investigated.
Dogan’s other defense lawyer, Jean-Marc Darrigade, also brought up other investigations. He challenged Dominique Pelicot on the statement he made about his marriage — the 40 impeccable years and 10 miserable ones — asking what happened, then, in the 90s.
Pelicot is currently being investigated for the rape and murder of Sophie Narme, a property agent in Paris who was killed in 1991, and the attempted rape of a woman known as Marion in 1999.
“Those are other investigations!” Pelicot launched at Darrigade, and refused to discuss them.
“Don’t you enjoy seeing others sink with you?” Darrigade said, referring to the video footage that exposed Dogan and 49 others. Pelicot said he’s pleased to see the truth being established.
“The truth that you expose,” Darrigade retorted.
Before being escorted out of the box, Pelicot said, “I just wanted to renew my apologies to my family — the one I had.”
As police led him out the door, Pelicot caught the eye of his lawyer, Béatrice Zavarro. He put his hand to his ear in the shape of a phone, and mouthed “call me” before he turned and walked out the door.
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