🔗 Share this article

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

Appeal Trial

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

A jury of five men and four women, sitting with three judges, found Dogan guilty on Thursday of raping Pelicot in her residence in Provence in the early hours of 29 June 2019.

The testimony revealed that Dogan, a married father, connected with Gisèle Pelicot’s then husband, the husband, in an internet forum titled “without her knowledge”, where the husband was recruiting men to visit his house to rape his wife once he had rendered her unconscious into a comatose state.

We expect the jury will declare that in this nation, human rights are also women’s rights – that agreement is personal, not transferred,” declared the victim's attorney, Antoine Camus. “Permission is received personally and not via a representative from a husband.”

Context

The husband, one of the worst sexual predators in recent French history, was given a prison term to two decades in prison last year for incapacitating his wife at the time and bringing in multiple perpetrators to sexually assault her in her home in the community of Mazan over a duration of nearly ten years of their marriage.

Fifty other men were found culpable in a high-profile trial last year, and the appellant was the single defendant to appeal against his conviction. He was first given a sentence to nine years in prison, a penalty raised on Thursday to 10 years.

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

Evidence Presented

Dogan had initially sent Dominique Pelicot sexually explicit photos and then traveled an hour from his town in Provence to rape Gisèle Pelicot, after informing his wife he was going out, the court heard.

Pelicot, who was transported from isolation in prison to briefly provide testimony at the retrial, stated to the court that the accused had been aware his wife had been “incapacitated” and he communicated to men by phone: “I want someone to assault my wife after I’ve put her to sleep without her knowledge.”

The proceedings became a key topic for a broader debate on rape culture in society as Dogan continued to assert he was blameless and had not committed rape, stating that because Gisèle Pelicot’s husband had invited him into the bedroom, his conduct had been acceptable.

The jury in the Nîmes appeals court was displayed visual proof of the victim's limp body, sedated and breathing heavily in a unconscious condition, while a grinning the perpetrator committed rape on several occasions over a duration of what police said was several hours. The court official said she had been at risk of fatal outcome by suffocation. The state prosecution said there was absolute certainty that she had been incapacitated and had not consented.

Dogan's Claims

Dogan told the court the footage were simply “sex scenes” and rejected it was assault. He said what he did was “an intimate behavior”, not rape. He told the court: “I never raped.” He said Gisèle Pelicot’s husband had allowed him to the house, and therefore it was acceptable. He said he was influenced by Dominique Pelicot. “I tried to halt,” the accused stated to the court. “I carried on because he reassured me.”

Asked if he wanted to make a last words to the court, Dogan said: “I did not intend to injure that woman.”

Pelicot's Words

Gisèle Pelicot, who was applauded upon exiting the courtroom each day by crowds assembled to stand with her, told the defendant in court: “You fail to comprehend. When will you admit you assaulted me? It is illegal to rape an unaware woman. At what point did I give you permission? Not once.”

The victim, seventy-two, became an global icon 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 Dogan’s refusal to take blame showed that: “The shame remains. The community is possibly in the process of that, maybe propelled by the public consciousness brought by the exposure of your case.”

Sie said Dogan’s claims of non-guilt showed how rape culture was still prevalent in society as part of “archaic” forms of “male domination”. He said: “Now we must change rape culture to a society based on agreement.”

Sie said to Dogan: “As long as you deny it, it’s not just a woman, it’s an complete unpleasant cultural framework that you are endorsing.”

Defendant's Background

The accused was born in Turkey and at the age of 5 relocated to France, where his parent worked as a concierge. The court heard that his parent was aggressive and that the defendant began using drugs at the age of ten. When Dogan was seventeen he was apprehended by police for drug trafficking and his father forced him to leave the family house. He was incarcerated in prison for drug dealing in his young adulthood and had worked as a laborer but had faced periods of being unhoused.

He was wed and had a child with special needs, 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 repeated intimate relations outside their marriage. His defence said this was his method of dealing with his stressful life. The defendant had stated to a mental health expert that each year he sought transactional encounters on his special day. His lawyers stated to the court he had a medical condition triggered by the pressure of the first trial.