An alleged sexual predator is on trial from November 3, suspected of dozens of rapes and sexual assaults on adolescents in several Southeast Asian countries.
The investigation covers nearly 30 years and is so vast that the fifty-year-old will initially be judged for only part of the acts committed in Malaysia, on twenty-five young boys.
The predatory career of Jean-Christophe Quénot, now 56, ended four years ago in Bangkok, where Thai police surprised him in a hotel room with two 14-year-old boys. He managed to escape, but when he returned to Besançon, it was the French police who arrested him.
In the meantime, the fifty-year-old took care to send himself by parcel, from South-East Asia, 17 hard drives containing proof of the horror: some 170,000 photos and videos of sexual abuse depicting him since 1991 , but also written reports, “meticulously referenced”, of each moment spent with these young boys… “who need pocket money” he explains.
The man, according to the investigation, does not present “any real feeling of guilt”, although “fully aware of acting illegally”. Despite the images, he affirms that he always ensured the consent of the children and explains that their grimaces are grins like he himself can have under the influence of pleasure. He describes his victims as boys who “like playing porn star”.
The accused apologizes
Before the five magistrates of the Criminal Court, this Friday morning, Jean-Christophe Quénot presents his apologies, without particular emotion: “We can’t go back, I am aware today that I am sick”, he said. The man claims to be in a support group in detention. Quickly questioned about the notion of consent which seemed foreign to him during the investigation, he clarified: “At the time I didn’t feel at all like I was violating someone, I was content with a ‘yes’ negotiated with money, a yes in exchange for money and thought that was enough.”
The personality of the accused who, says the president, organized his life around this sexual activity with children, intrigues Agathe Morel, lawyer for the Enfance et Partage association: “All his free time is devoted to that. He travels, he organizes meetings, he goes to certain places to find children. He writes everything down. I ask myself a lot of questions about why he has this personality? How is it built? I don’t think we can be born with such endurance in terms of sexuality. Maybe he’ll tell us a little more.” A defendant who says he was not sexually abused as a child. His interrogation is scheduled to take place on Monday. The trial continues until early next week.