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An individual was convicted on appeal of sexually assaulting Gisèle Pelicot after she was drugged unconscious by her husband – and was given his incarceration period extended to a decade.

Higher Court Case

Husamettin Dogan, forty-four, an unemployed builder, who had challenged his initial guilty verdict last year, underwent a retrial this week at the appeals court in Nîmes.

A panel of five men and four women, accompanied by three judges, convicted Dogan on Thursday of raping the victim in her residence in southern France in the early hours of 29 June 2019.

The court heard that the accused, a family man, connected with Gisèle Pelicot’s then husband, Dominique Pelicot, in an digital platform named “without her consent”, where Pelicot was seeking men to come to his home to rape his wife after he had rendered her unconscious into a unconscious state.

“We hope the jury will say loud and clear that in this society, human rights are also rights of women – that consent is individual, not delegated,” declared Gisèle Pelicot’s attorney, her legal representative. “Consent is secured personally and not through someone else from a husband.”

Case History

The ex-husband, among the most severe sexual predators in France's contemporary records, was handed a sentence to twenty years in prison last year for sedating his wife at the time and bringing in multiple perpetrators to sexually assault her in her home in the Provence village of the village of Mazan over a period of many years of their marriage.

Dozens of additional defendants were found guilty in a widely publicized trial last year, and the appellant was the only man to contest his sentence. He was first handed a term to nine years in prison, a sentence enhanced on Thursday to 10 years.

The lead state prosecutor, the prosecutor, had stated he should serve 12 years, because he “absolutely refuses to take any blame”.

Evidence Presented

Dogan had first sent the husband sexually explicit photos and then driven an hour from his town in the region to assault the victim, after telling his wife he was leaving, the testimony revealed.

Pelicot, who was brought from segregation in prison to temporarily testify at the hearing, stated to the court that the accused had been aware his wife had been “sedated” and he said to men by phone: “I want someone to assault my wife after I’ve sedated her unbeknownst to her.”

The proceedings became a focus point for a larger conversation on societal attitudes in society as the defendant continued to say he was not guilty and had not committed rape, stating that because Gisèle Pelicot’s husband had allowed him into the room, his actions had been acceptable.

The jury in the higher court was presented with video evidence of Gisèle Pelicot’s unresponsive form, unconscious and breathing heavily in a unconscious condition, while a smiling the perpetrator performed assault multiple times over a timeframe of what investigators stated was three and a half hours. The judge said she had been at peril of fatal outcome by asphyxiation. The prosecution said there was no doubt that she had been incapacitated and had not consented.

Dogan's Claims

The defendant told the court the videos were simply “intimate moments” and denied it was violation. He said what he did was “an intimate behavior”, not rape. He stated the court: “I did not commit rape.” He said Gisèle Pelicot’s husband had invited him to the home, and therefore it was OK. He said he was deceived by Dominique Pelicot. “I wanted to stop,” the accused stated to the court. “I continued because he reassured me.”

Questioned if he wanted to make a last words to the court, Dogan said: “I had no desire to injure that individual.”

Survivor's Statement

The survivor, who was cheered upon leaving court each day by supporters gathered to stand with her, said to the defendant in court: “You do not grasp. When will you admit you raped me? It is illegal to assault an unaware woman. How could I have give you permission? Not once.”

Gisèle Pelicot, 72, became an global icon after she waived her right to confidentiality in the trial last year when she said: “The shame should shift.”

Prosecutor's Remarks

Sie, speaking to Gisèle Pelicot in court, said Dogan’s unwillingness to take blame showed that: “The shame remains. The community is perhaps in the course of that, maybe motivated by the public consciousness brought by the revelation of your ordeal.”

The prosecutor said the defendant's claims of blamelessness showed how societal tolerance was still common in society as part of “archaic” forms of “gender-based power”. He said: “We need to change rape culture to a society based on agreement.”

Sie said to Dogan: “For as much as you refuse to admit it, it’s not just a person, it’s an whole sordid social system that you are endorsing.”

Biographical Details

Dogan was born in the country of Turkey and at the age of 5 relocated to France, where his father worked as a building manager. The testimony revealed that his father was violent and that Dogan began smoking cannabis aged 10. When he was 17 he was apprehended by authorities for selling narcotics and his father evicted him the family house. He spent time in prison for narcotics offenses in his twenties and had worked as a builder but had undergone periods of being unhoused.

He was married and had a son with a genetic condition, who he was the principal carer for, as his wife worked in a institution's dining hall. The evidence showed his wife did not know he had regular extramarital activities outside their union. His defence said this was his way of coping with his challenging existence. Dogan had stated to a evaluator that each year he engaged in commercial sex on his special day. His attorneys told the court he had joint inflammation triggered by the pressure of the first trial.