A court trying a Frenchman charged with drugging his wife and enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her screened videos of the abuse to the public on Friday, to challenge several codefendants who denied knowing she was unconscious during their actions.
The judge in the southern city of Avignon had nine videos and several photographs of the abuse of Gisele Pelicot shown in the courtroom and an adjoining public chamber, involving seven of the 50 men accused alongside her husband.
Present in the courtroom herself, Gisele Pelicot looked at her telephone during the hour and a half of screenings, while her ex-husband in the dock covered his eyes and several of his codefendants watched themselves on the screen or stared at the floor.
Photo: AFP
Gisele Pelicot has insisted on the trial being open to the public to draw attention to the use of drugs to commit sexual abuse, and had called for the lifting of restrictions on the screening of the images.
Reversing an earlier decision to keep the screenings behind closed doors, Judge Roger Arata accepted a request by her lawyers for the public to be present when the images were shown.
They were screened to challenge testimonies from some of the accused that they were unaware the victim was unconscious.
However, after the images were shown, most stuck to their defense.
They had earlier said they had thought they were participating in a sex game.
After the screenings, one said he had “no memory” of the event, while another said he was “terrorized” by Dominique Pelicot even if it “doesn’t look like it” in the images.
A third said he had not heard Gisele Pelicot snoring or had “hoped she would wake up at the end.”
Dominique Pelicot filmed much of the abuse against his wife and also took meticulous records of the strangers visiting their home, which subsequently helped police uncover the crimes.
He has admitted to drugging his wife and inviting men to rape her between 2011 and 2020.
Arata ruled that the screening of video evidence would “not be systematic” and would occur only when “strictly necessary for exposing the truth,” and at the request of one of the parties.
Gisele Pelicot’s lawyer Stephane Babonneau said the ruling was a “victory,” but “a victory in a fight that should not have been fought.”
Gisele Pelicot’s willingness to highlight her suffering has won widespread praise and made her a feminist icon in France.
“For Gisele Pelicot, it is too late. The harm is done,” Babonneau said. “But if these same hearings, through being publicized, help prevent other women from having to go through this, then she will find meaning in her suffering.”
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
Former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a Peruvian presidential hopeful, gathered hundreds of supporters in Lima on Tuesday and gave authorities 24 hours to annul the first round of the country’s election over allegations of fraud. Lopez Aliaga is locked in a tight three-way race with two other candidates for second place in Sunday’s vote. The election runner-up wins a ticket to June’s presidential run-off against front-runner Keiko Fujimori. “I am giving them 24 hours to declare this electoral fraud null and void,” said Lopez Aliaga, surrounded by a crowd of several hundred supporters. “If it is not declared null and void tomorrow,
Four contenders are squaring up to succeed Antonio Guterres as secretary-general of the UN, which faces unprecedented global instability, wars and its own crushing budget crisis. Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan and Senegal’s Macky Sall are each to face grillings by 193 member states and non-governmental organizations for three hours today and tomorrow. It is only the second time the UN has held a public question-and-answer, a format created in 2016 to boost transparency. Ultimately the five permanent members of the UN’s top body, the Security Council, hold the power, wielding vetoes over who leads the
A humanoid robot that won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing on Sunday ran faster than the human world record in a show of China’s technological leaps. The winner from Honor, a Chinese smartphone maker, completed the 21km race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, said a WeChat post by the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing E-Town, where the race began. That was faster than the human world record holder, Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo, who finished the same distance in about 57 minutes in March at the Lisbon road race. The performance by the robot marked a significant step forward
RSS