What are the elements of the investigation that led to the return of Hugo Auradou and Oscar Jegou?

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The players were authorized by the Argentine justice system to return to France. But the case is still under investigation in Mendoza.

They set foot on French soil two months after their arrest in Argentina. The French players Hugo Auradou and Oscar Jegou, prosecuted for gang rape, landed at Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport on the evening of Wednesday, September 4, after being authorized by the Argentine justice system to return to France. Accused of rape by a 39-year-old woman on the night of July 6 to 7 in a hotel room in Mendoza, where the French XV had just won a friendly match against Argentina, the two rugby players had already been released in mid-August, with the prosecution pointing out “the existence of notorious contradictions, inconsistencies, gray areas and even insufficient explanations” in the complainant’s version.

The defense ofHugo Auradou and Oscar Jegouconvinced that the prosecution’s position had weakened during the investigation, have filed a request for dismissal of the case. The plaintiff’s lawyers, for their part, claim that their client suffers from “irreparable damage” and that she is still hospitalized after a suicide attempt ten days ago. Since the beginning of the case, both parties have invoked “proofs” and deliver a diametrically opposed version of what happened in the players’ hotel room. Franceinfo returns to the points where the versions diverge.

Opposing versions of consent

The complainant, daughter and sister of lawyers, was questioned at length from July 7. She claims to have been “savagely beaten” in this hotel room and evokes a “terrible violence”. According to his words, Hugo Auradou, 21 years old, “immediately grabs her, throws her on the bed, starts undressing her and begins to beat her savagely”. “Once she can no longer defend herself, when she has no chance of escaping, she is sexually assaulted by this first person.”, “at least six times”she continues. According to Natacha Romano, her lawyer, Oscar Jegou, also 21, between “an hour later” in the room where he “begins to commit the same acts savagely (…) without any protection”. In an interview with the newspaper Mendoza’s Diary One published on July 26, the forty-year-old claims to have “says ‘no’ to sex”.

During their auditions at the beginning of August, the rugby players They acknowledge that they had sexual intercourse but maintain that it was consensual. They also deny any form of violence. Without revealing the details of their statements, their lawyer Rafael Cuneo Libarona, brother of the Argentine Minister of Justice, explained that Hugo Auradou had “answered more than 150 questions from the prosecution, the defense and the plaintiff’s lawyers” and that Oscar Jégou had “had to answer 50 or 60 questions from everyone”. The accused “were never able to answer whether they had asked the victim whether she agreed or not”opposed Natacha Romano. They summoned “difficulty communicating with the victim, but for them it was clear that the victim consented”added Mauricio Cardello, another lawyer for the plaintiff. In an excerpt from the program “Envoyé spécial” which will be broadcast on September 12, his client maintains: “They brutalized me and treated me like a piece of meat.”

CCTV footage

To support the defense’s version that these sexual relations were “consented”lawyer Rafael Cuneo Libarona spoke of “clues” recorded by video surveillance. In these images, the complainant leaves the nightclub with Hugo Auradou, gets into a taxi with him, enters the hotel and waits for the player to go and get the room key. For the lawyer, this is a case of“a 40 year old woman who already knows what’s going on in life”It also relies on video surveillance to rto refute that blows were inflicted: the complainant “claims to have been beaten, the cameras say she wasn’t”.

In mid-August, a video from the hotel elevator’s CCTV camera was released by the website MendozaPost.comWe see the complainant calmly enter inside and fix her hair, without asking for help from Patrick Arlettaz, a coach of the French XV, whom she meets at that moment.

The taxi driver who took her home also testified to the press. “She took it in the morning, around 8:30. I saw her calm, nothing strange.”he assured several media outlets including AFP, requesting anonymity and refusing to be filmed or photographed.

So many elements that do not fit with the statements made by Natacha Romero on the condition of her client, hospitalized for a “general decompensation” after the reported facts. “She has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and is taking medication.”she said. “I am not healthy. I still suffer from lipothymia”a feeling of imminent loss of consciousness, the complainant said in the Mendoza’s Diary One.

Audio messages from the complainant

In early August, the Argentine daily Clarin publishes audio messages exchanged between the complainant and a friend the day after the events. These conversations undermine the version according to which she “says ‘no’ to sex” from his meeting with Hugo Auradou in a nightclub. “I met a French rugby player. The guy was really tall. So handsome, so handsome. I went home at 9 o’clock in the morning. At 9 o’clock! (…) When I go out, I’m enjoying it. He broke me. He broke me”she says in these messages translated by The Parisian. “He took my cheek and left little bruises on my face, on jaw, on the ass, scrapes on the back. You can’t imagine. (…) The guy blew me up. I have marks on my back, jaw. I have a black eye, I have bruises all over my boobs, marks on my ass. He blew me up. I have a black eye, girl. (…) Huge brown. Beautiful. Eyes… But I had to take a Diclofenac [un anti-inflammatoire] because he blew me up”she continues.

According to his older brother, questioned by The Parisian, “It was an intimate conversation between two friends who were still a little under the influence of alcohol at the time.”. In the rest of these messages, her friend makes her aware of the violent nature of what she is describing. For her lawyers, it is a question of“e“partial extracts” and their client “was not herself”. They explain that she brought “explanations with great calm” about these conversations during his deposition. For the defense, the prosecution “clearly took this element to mean that there were contradictions in the complainant’s testimony”. “Contradiction, since, in one of the conversations very close to the facts, she mentions a sexual relationship (…) in a cheerful and laughing tone, which is hardly compatible with the acts that she will subsequently denounce”believes Antoine Vey, the players’ French lawyer, in The Figaro.

Injuries observed on the victim

At the very beginning of the investigation, prosecutor Daniela Chaler considered that the complainant’s testimony “corresponded for the time being with the forensic findings”. A forensic report, carried out on July 7, the day the complaint was filed against Hugo Auradou and Oscar Jegoureports fifteen injuries listed on the victim’s body. “It has not been determined whether they came from blows or pressure. [exercées sur la peau]“said the spokesman for the Mendoza prosecutor’s office. She had “marks on the back, bites, scratches, blows to the breasts, legs and ribs”details Natacha Romano. At the end of August, the Argentine press, including the Mendoza’s Diary Onepublishes the complainant’s injuries.

The rugby players’ defense retorts that these photos are “known to the judges and on file since the first week”In a statement, Antoine Vey said that the investigation had already concluded that they “are not compatible with the scenes described by the complainant” and that an expert has “rejected that these marks could have been caused by blows”because “actually very light”The investigation, the defense recalls, “subsequently established that the complainant had concealed from the courts the fact that she suffered from Willebrand disease”a hemorrhagic pathology, a coagulation disorder, which can predispose to bruising or bleeding. “Why did you hide it?” asks the lawyer, deploring a “attempted manipulation”.

The return of the players to France does not necessarily signal the end of this case, which is still under investigation. If the accusation has “lost its initial strength” according to the prosecution, Hugo Auradou and Oscar Jegou must, however, be at the disposal of the Argentine justice system and return “to report to Mendoza if asked”.


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