🔗 Share this article

An individual has been found guilty on appeal of sexually assaulting Gisele Pelicot after she was sedated by her then-husband – and received his jail term raised to 10 years.

Appeal Trial

Dogan, 44, an unemployed builder, who had contested his initial guilty verdict last year, experienced a retrial this week at the Nîmes court of appeal.

A panel of nine jurors, sitting with three judges, found Dogan guilty on Thursday of sexually assaulting the victim in her residence in Provence in the early hours of June 29, 2019.

The court heard that the accused, a married father, reached out to Gisèle Pelicot’s then husband, Dominique Pelicot, in an online chatroom titled “without her knowledge”, where Pelicot was looking for men to come to his home to rape his wife after he had drugged her into a comatose state.

We trust the jury will say loud and clear that in this society, human rights are also rights of women – that agreement is personal, not given by another,” stated Gisèle Pelicot’s attorney, her legal representative. “Agreement is secured personally and not through someone else from a husband.”

Case History

Dominique Pelicot, a notorious sexual predators in modern French history, was sentenced to 20 years in prison last year for incapacitating his spouse and soliciting numerous individuals to sexually assault her in her home in the community of the village of Mazan over a span of almost a decade of their union.

Dozens of additional defendants were found culpable in a widely publicized trial last year, and the appellant was the only man to contest his conviction. He was initially sentenced to nine years in prison, a punishment enhanced on Thursday to ten years.

The state's attorney, the prosecutor, had stated he should serve 12 years, because he “absolutely refuses to take any responsibility”.

Testimony and Proof

Dogan had first sent the husband inappropriate pictures and then driven an hour from his town in the region to assault the victim, after notifying his wife he was leaving, the court heard.

Pelicot, who was brought from solitary confinement in prison to briefly provide testimony at the hearing, informed the court that Dogan had understood his wife had been “drugged” and he communicated to men by phone: “I seek someone to violate my wife after I’ve put her to sleep without her consent.”

The proceedings became a focus point for a broader debate on sexual violence norms in society as Dogan continued to claim he was not guilty and had not engaged in violation, stating that because the victim's husband had invited him into the room, his behavior had been permissible.

The jury in the higher court was shown video evidence of the victim's unresponsive form, unconscious and snoring in a comatose state, while a grinning Dogan committed rape multiple times over a period of what authorities reported was three and a half hours. The judge said she had been at peril of fatal outcome by suffocation. The state's case said there was absolute certainty that she had been incapacitated and had not agreed.

Dogan's Claims

The defendant informed the court the recordings were simply “intimate moments” and disputed it was violation. He said what he did was “an intimate behavior”, not assault. He stated the court: “I am innocent of assault.” He said the victim's husband had invited him to the residence, and therefore it was OK. He said he was deceived by Dominique Pelicot. “I wanted to stop,” Dogan informed 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.”

Pelicot's Words

The survivor, who was supported upon exiting the courtroom each day by onlookers assembled to stand with her, addressed the defendant in court: “You haven’t understood. When will you acknowledge you raped me? It’s a crime to assault an unconscious woman. When did I ever give you permission? Not once.”

Gisèle Pelicot, seventy-two, became an global icon after she gave up her right to privacy in the trial last year when she said: “Guilt ought to transfer.”

Legal Commentary

Sie, speaking to the victim in court, said the defendant's failure to take blame showed that: “The shame remains. Society is maybe in the course of that, perhaps driven by the societal understanding brought by the publication of your situation.”

The prosecutor said the defendant's claims of innocence showed how rape culture was still widespread in society as part of “old-fashioned” forms of “patriarchal control”. He said: “It is imperative to change the culture of violence to a society based on agreement.”

Sie told the defendant: “For as much as you reject it, it’s not just a individual, it’s an entire unpleasant societal structure that you are supporting.”

Defendant's Background

The accused was born in Turkey and at the age of 5 came to the nation of France, where his father worked as a concierge. The evidence indicated that his parent was aggressive and that the defendant began smoking cannabis at the age of 10. When Dogan was seventeen he was stopped by authorities for dealing drugs and his father kicked him out the residence. He served time in prison for narcotics offenses in his twenties and had worked as a laborer but had undergone periods of homelessness.

He was married and had a child with Down’s syndrome, who he was the primary guardian for, as his wife worked in a educational cafeteria. The testimony revealed his spouse did not know he had repeated extramarital activities beyond their union. His defence said this was his way of coping with his difficult circumstances. The defendant had informed a evaluator that annually he engaged in paid sex on his birthday. His attorneys stated to the court he had joint inflammation resulting from the anxiety of the first trial.