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Video length: 4 min
Mazan rape trial: more than a month of an extraordinary hearing
Mazan rape trial: more than a month of an extraordinary hearing
(France 2)
In the Mazan rape trial, Dominique Pélicot is accused of having drugged his wife, Gisèle, and invited a hundred strangers to rape her. Each hearing arouses incomprehension, even indignation.
In Avignon (Vaucluse), applause rings out every day in support of the main victim, Gisèle Pélicot. The scene is unusual in a court. For ten years, she was drugged without her knowledge by her husband and raped in her sleep by dozens of strangers, recruited on the Internet. In total, 51 men appear. Every morning, from 8 a.m., there are still so many people wanting to attend the hearing, one month after the start of the trial.
The trial is broadcast on video in a second room, but places are limited. Confronting the horror of the facts, to try to understand: since September 2, this has been the mission of the Vaucluse criminal court. Faced with Dominique Pélicot and the 50 co-defendants, the six judges seek to establish the responsibility of each.
Media around the world are interested in the trial. In Spain, the articles by Raquel Villaécija, correspondent for the newspaper “El Mundo” in France, are particularly popular. For the trial, which lasted four months, Dominique Pélicot’s lawyer, Me Béatrice Zavarro, rented accommodation in Avignon, where she works on her case constantly. “I knew there would be the national press, but I didn’t suspect the international press.”she admits.
Watch the full report in the video above.