Mendoza prosecutor’s office recommends the return to France of the two players

Meanwhile, on Monday, the plaintiff’s lawyers requested the disqualification of the prosecutors, whom they accuse of a “lack of objectivity.”

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Hugo Auradou (left) and Oscar Jegou in Mendoza, Argentina, on August 12, 2024. (ANDRES LARROVERE / AFP)

They could soon be back on French soil. The Argentinian prosecutor’s office in Mendoza recommended, on Monday, September 2, the return to France of Oscar Jegou and Hugo Auradou, the two rugby players charged with rape and held in Argentina for nearly two months.

The parquet floor “authorized the exit from the country, so that they could travel to France”a provincial justice spokesman told reporters. Their release “concrete and effective” remains however suspended pending the decision of a magistrate of detentions and liberties, during a hearing scheduled for Tuesday.

At the same time, the plaintiff’s lawyers filed a request on the same day to disqualify the two prosecutors in charge of the investigation, whom they accuse of “lack of objectivity”. The request for “formal recusal” was filed at the judicial center of Mendoza (west), one of the lawyers, Mauricio Cardello, told journalists.

A 39-year-old Argentinian woman accuses the two 21-year-old players of raping her in a hotel room in Mendoza, 1,000 km from Buenos Aires, after a drunken night in a bar where players from the French national team were partying. Since the start of the investigation, the two 21-year-old rugby players have admitted to a sexual relationship, claiming that it was consensual and denying rape.


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