Lawyers question whether a drugged French woman was truly unconscious during alleged rapes

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A 71-year-old French man admitted in court Tuesday that for nearly a decade, he repeatedly drugged his unwitting wife and invited dozens of men to rape her while she lay unconscious in their bed. His wife of 50 years, who has divorced him since his arrest, also got to speak, telling the court that she feels completely betrayed. In a trial that has gripped France and raised awareness about sexual violence in the home and beyond, Dominique Pélicot told the court that he also raped his wife, Gisèle Pélicot, and that the 50 men standing trial alongside him understood exactly what they were doing.

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A French woman who’s accusing her ex-husband of mass rape faced painful questioning from defense on Wednesday. Gisèle Pelicot, whose husband is accused of drugging her so that he and other men could rape her while she lay unconscious, was confronted by lawyers and intimate images of herself in the courtroom.

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This courtroom sketch by Valentin Pasquier shows Gisèle Pelicot, left, and her ex-husband Dominique Pelicot, right, during his trial, at the Avignon court house, in Avignon, southern France, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Valentin Pasquier)

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Gisèle Pelicot arrives at the Avignon court house, in Avignon, southern France, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024, where her ex-husband admitted in court that for nearly a decade, he repeatedly drugged his unwitting wife and invited dozens of men to rape her while she lay unconscious. (AP Photo/Diane Jantet)

By DIANE JEANTET and MARINE LESPRIT

AVIGNON, France (AP) — Lawyers for some of the men accused of raping an unconscious French woman who had been drugged by her husband questioned her Wednesday about her habits, personal life and sex life, and even questioned whether she was truly unconscious during the encounters.

Gisèle Pelicot’s testimony came a day after her ex-husband, Dominique Pelicot, told the court that for nearly 10 years, he drugged her and invited dozens of men to rape her as she lay defenseless. She fiercely rejected any suggestion that she was anything but an unwitting victim.

“Since I’ve arrived in this courtroom, I’ve felt humiliated. I am treated like an alcoholic, an accomplice. ... I have heard it all,” she said at the start of the day’s proceedings, breaking at times with the remarkable calm and stoicism she has shown throughout the often harrowing trial that has gripped France.

Gisèle Pelicot, who was married to her husband for 50 years and shares three children with him, has become a hero to many rape victims and a symbol of the fight against sexual violence in France for waiving her anonymity in the case, letting the trial be public and appearing openly in front of the media.

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Her ex-husband and the 50 other men on trial, who range in age from 26 to 74, face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Many of the defendants deny having raped Gisèle Pelicot. Some claim they were tricked by Dominique Pelicot, others say they believed she was consenting, and others argue that her husband’s consent was sufficient.

Gisèle Pelicot and her lawyers say the preponderance of evidence -- thousands of videos and photos shot by her ex-husband of men having sex with her while she appeared to be unconscious -- should be enough to prove she was a victim and was entirely unaware of what Dominique Pelicot was subjecting her to from at least 2011 until 2020.

But on Wednesday, defense lawyers focused their questions on the notion of consent and whether she was aware of what was happening at any point during some of the 90 sexual encounters that prosecutors believe were rapes.

“Don’t you have tendencies that you are not comfortable with?” one lawyer asked Gisèle Pelicot.

“I’m not even going to answer this question, which I find insulting,” she responded, her voice breaking. “I understand why victims of rape don’t press charges. We really spill everything out into the open to humiliate the victim.”

Another lawyer asked whether she was indeed unconscious during one of the encounters captured on video.

“I didn’t give my consent to Mr. Pelicot or these men behind me for one second,” she said, referring to her ex-husband’s co-defendants. “In the state I was in, I could not respond to anybody. I was in a state of coma — the videos will attest to it.”

The line of questioning upset her. “Since when can a man decide for his wife?” she said, stressing that only one of her ex-husband’s 50 co- defendants had refused his invitation to rape her. That man met Dominique Pelicot online and invited him to rape his own wife, who was also drugged, authorities contend.

“What are these men? Are they degenerates?” she said angrily. “They have committed rapes. That’s all I have to say.”

Another questioned the time and date stamps on the videos, and whether she thought the sexual acts lasted as long as the stamps suggested. “Rape is not a question of time,” she said.

“To talk of minutes, seconds. ... It does not matter how long they spent. It’s so degrading, humiliating what I am hearing in this room,” she said.

At one point, Dominique Pelicot, who already said during the trial that all of the accusations against him are true, came out in support of his ex-wife, saying, “Stop suspecting her all the time ... I did many things without her knowing.”

On Tuesday, he testified that all of his co-defendants knew exactly what they were doing when he had them over, saying, “They knew everything. They can’t say otherwise.”