PARIS – A lawyer urged judges to acquit her clients Friday as defence pleas wrap up at a massive rape trial in France, arguing the main victim’s “monster” husband had manipulated them into assaulting her.
READ: Two defendants in French mass rape trial seek leniency
In a trial that has shocked the country and whose verdict is expected next week, Dominique Pelicot, 72, has admitted to drugging his then wife Gisele Pelicot for almost a decade so he and strangers he recruited online could rape her.
Gisele Pelicot, 72, has become a feminist hero at home and abroad, even making it onto the BBC’s 100 Women list, for refusing to be ashamed and standing up to her aggressors in court.
Alongside her now ex-husband, 50 other men aged 27 to 74 are on trial, including one who did not abuse her but instead raped his own wife with Dominique Pelicot’s help.
Among the remaining 49, 36-year-old Omar D., a cleaner, and 74-year-old retiree Jean-Marc L., the oldest co-defendant, have been accused of raping Gisele Pelicot.
The prosecution has requested 12 years and 10 years in jail for them respectively.
Their lawyer Nadia El Bouroumi on Friday said she was in no way questioning Gisele Pelicot’s lack of consent.
But she said her clients had been manipulated by a “monster” and asked for them to be acquitted.
“I am defending men who are what is normal in society,” she said.
“It is Mr. Pelicot who is the exception, someone who is dangerous. We have a monster in the dock.”
Other defence lawyers have described him as an “ogre” or a “wolf”.
– ‘Hard for us’ –
He “used these men like objects”, she said, calling them “indirect victims”.
“How were they supposed to know that Mrs Pelicot had been drugged?
“A serial rapist has… a way of functioning in which they manipulate,” she said, alluding to two cold cases in which Dominique Pelicot has been accused.
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