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A defendant was convicted on higher court review of sexually assaulting Gisèle Pelicot after she was rendered comatose by her husband – and received his incarceration period extended to a decade.

Higher Court Case

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

A panel of five men and four women, sitting with three judges, found Dogan guilty on Thursday of raping the victim in her home in southern France in the early hours of June 29, 2019.

The testimony revealed that the accused, a married father, connected with Gisèle Pelicot’s spouse, the husband, in an digital platform called “unbeknownst to her”, where Pelicot was looking for men to come to his home to assault his wife once he had drugged her into a comatose state.

“We hope the jury will declare that in this nation, human rights are also rights of women – that agreement is individual, not delegated,” said Gisèle Pelicot’s lawyer, her legal representative. “Permission is secured personally and not via a representative from a husband.”

Case History

The husband, a notorious sex offenders in France's contemporary records, was sentenced to twenty years in prison last year for incapacitating his spouse and bringing in dozens of men to rape her in her home in the community of the village of Mazan over a duration of nearly ten years of their union.

Dozens of additional defendants were found guilty in a high-profile trial last year, and the appellant was the single defendant to challenge his verdict. He was first handed a term to 9 years in prison, a sentence raised on Thursday to ten years.

The chief prosecutor, the prosecutor, had contended he should serve twelve years, because he “absolutely refuses to take any blame”.

Testimony and Proof

The defendant had first sent the husband inappropriate pictures and then driven an hour from his town in the region to rape Gisèle Pelicot, after informing his wife he was going out, the court heard.

The ex-husband, who was brought from solitary confinement in prison to briefly testify at the appeal trial, informed the court that the accused had been aware his wife had been “drugged” and he told to men by phone: “I seek someone to abuse my wife after I’ve sedated her unbeknownst to her.”

The courtroom became a key topic for a larger conversation on societal attitudes in society as the defendant continued to claim he was innocent and had not committed rape, stating that because Gisèle Pelicot’s husband had welcomed him into the room, his conduct had been acceptable.

The jury in the higher court was displayed recorded footage of the victim's limp body, comatose and breathing heavily in a deep sleep, while a grinning the perpetrator engaged in violation repeatedly over a duration of what police said was three and a half hours. The presiding judge said she had been at risk of death by suffocation. The prosecution said there was no doubt that she had been incapacitated and had not agreed.

Defendant's Statements

Dogan stated to the court the videos were simply “sexual encounters” and rejected it was assault. He said what he did was “an intimate behavior”, not assault. He told the court: “I never raped.” He said the victim's husband had allowed him to the home, and therefore it was OK. He said he was deceived by the husband. “I wanted to stop,” Dogan stated to the court. “I continued because he reassured me.”

Asked if he wanted to make a closing remarks to the court, the defendant said: “I never wanted to hurt that woman.”

Pelicot's Words

The victim, who was cheered upon departing the trial each day by onlookers assembled to stand with her, addressed the defendant in court: “You do not grasp. When will you admit you assaulted me? It’s a crime to rape an unconscious woman. At what point did I give you consent? Not once.”

Gisèle Pelicot, seventy-two, became an symbol of resistance after she relinquished her right to confidentiality in the trial last year when she said: “The shame should shift.”

State's Argument

Sie, addressing Gisèle Pelicot in court, said the defendant's failure to take blame showed that: “The shame remains. Society is perhaps in the midst of that, possibly driven by the societal understanding brought by the publication of your ordeal.”

The prosecutor said the defendant's claims of blamelessness showed how societal tolerance was still prevalent in society as part of “archaic” forms of “male domination”. He said: “It is imperative to change rape culture to a society based on agreement.”

Sie told the defendant: “For as much as you reject it, it’s not just a person, it’s an complete unpleasant cultural framework that you are endorsing.”

Biographical Details

The accused was born in the country of Turkey and at the age of 5 came to the nation of France, where his parent worked as a caretaker. The court heard that his parent was aggressive and that Dogan began smoking cannabis at the age of ten. When Dogan was seventeen he was caught by police for dealing drugs and his father forced him to leave of home. He spent time in prison for narcotics offenses in his early 20s and had worked as a laborer but had undergone periods of living on the streets.

He was married and had a child with Down’s syndrome, who he was the principal carer for, as his spouse worked in a educational cafeteria. The testimony revealed his spouse did not know he had frequent sexual encounters beyond their union. His defence said this was his method of dealing with his stressful life. The defendant had stated to a mental health expert that annually he sought paid sex on his birthday. His attorneys informed the court he had a medical condition triggered by the anxiety of the first trial.