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A defendant was convicted on appeal of raping Gisèle Pelicot following she was rendered comatose by her then-husband – and was given his incarceration period raised to a decade.

Higher Court Case

Husamettin Dogan, 44, an out-of-work construction worker, who had challenged his first conviction last year, experienced a appeal hearing this week at the higher court in Nîmes.

A jury of five men and four women, sitting with three judges, convicted Dogan on Thursday of sexually assaulting the victim in her residence in southern France in the morning of June 29, 2019.

The court heard that the accused, a married father, reached out to Gisèle Pelicot’s spouse, the husband, in an digital platform named “without her knowledge”, where Pelicot was recruiting men to come to his home to assault his wife after he had rendered her unconscious into a deep sleep.

We trust the panel will say loud and clear that in this society, human rights are also women’s rights – that consent is personal, not delegated,” said the victim's attorney, her legal representative. “Permission is obtained personally and not by proxy from a husband.”

Case History

The husband, among the most severe sex offenders in France's contemporary records, was given a prison term to twenty years in prison last year for sedating his wife at the time and soliciting dozens of men to rape her in her home in the Provence village of the village of Mazan over a duration of almost a decade of their union.

Fifty other men were found culpable in a widely publicized trial last year, and the appellant was the sole individual to contest his sentence. He was first sentenced to nine years in prison, a penalty increased on Thursday to 10 years.

The lead state prosecutor, Dominique Sie, had stated he should serve 12 years, because he “stubbornly rejects to take any responsibility”.

Evidence Presented

Dogan had initially sent the husband sexually explicit photos and then driven an hour from his village in Provence to assault the victim, after notifying his wife he was going out, the court heard.

Pelicot, who was transported from isolation in prison to temporarily give evidence at the hearing, told the court that the accused had known his wife had been “incapacitated” and he told to men by phone: “I’m looking for someone to violate my wife after I’ve put her to sleep unbeknownst to her.”

The trial became a central issue for a wider discussion on rape culture in society as the defendant continued to say he was innocent and had not engaged in violation, arguing that because Gisèle Pelicot’s husband had allowed him into the bedroom, his actions had been permissible.

The jury in the Nîmes appeals court was displayed recorded footage of the victim's limp body, unconscious and breathing heavily in a comatose state, while a grinning Dogan performed assault on several occasions over a period of what authorities reported was three and a half hours. The presiding judge said she had been at peril of death by choking. The prosecution said there was no doubt that she had been incapacitated and had not given permission.

Dogan's Claims

Dogan told the court the footage were simply “intimate moments” and denied it was assault. He said what he did was “an intimate behavior”, not assault. He told the court: “I am innocent of assault.” He said the victim's husband had invited him to the house, and therefore it was acceptable. He said he was manipulated by Dominique Pelicot. “I attempted to cease,” Dogan told the court. “I carried on because he persuaded me.”

Asked if he wanted to make a final statement to the court, Dogan said: “I did not intend to harm that lady.”

Survivor's Statement

The victim, who was applauded upon leaving court each day by crowds assembled to back her, said to the defendant in court: “You do not grasp. When will you admit you violated me? It’s a crime to assault an unconscious woman. At what point did I give you consent? Never.”

Gisèle Pelicot, seventy-two, became an global icon after she relinquished her right to confidentiality in the trial last year when she said: “Shame must change sides.”

Legal Commentary

Sie, addressing Gisèle Pelicot in court, said Dogan’s unwillingness to take accountability showed that: “Shame has not yet changed sides. The public is perhaps in the course of that, perhaps driven by the societal understanding brought by the revelation of your situation.”

Sie said Dogan’s claims of innocence showed how societal tolerance was still widespread in society as part of “old-fashioned” forms of “patriarchal control”. He said: “It is imperative to change rape culture to a culture of consent.”

Sie said to Dogan: “As long as you refuse to admit it, it’s not just a individual, it’s an entire unpleasant social system that you are endorsing.”

Defendant's Background

The accused was born in the country of Turkey and at the age of five relocated to the nation of France, where his father worked as a building manager. The evidence indicated that his father was violent and that Dogan began consuming marijuana aged ten. When Dogan was 17 he was stopped by authorities for drug trafficking and his father evicted him of home. He spent time in prison for drug dealing in his twenties and had worked as a builder but had faced periods of homelessness.

He was married and had a son with special needs, who he was the principal carer for, as his wife worked in a school canteen. The evidence showed his spouse did not know he had repeated intimate relations outside their union. His legal team said this was his strategy for managing with his challenging existence. Dogan had told a evaluator that annually he sought paid sex on his birthday. His attorneys told the court he had joint inflammation resulting from the pressure of the original case.