Paris, Nov. 27, (dpa/GNA) – The public prosecutor has demanded prison sentences of between 4 and 20 years for the 51 defendants in the trial concerning drugging and years of sexual abuse in southern France.
The public prosecutor’s office on Wednesday demanded the maximum sentence of 20 years for aggravated rape only for the main defendant in the case, Dominique Pelicot.
He confessed in the court in Avignon to having drugged and abused his then-wife Gisèle for almost ten years, and to having strangers rape her.
Regarding the other 50 accused men, the public prosecutor charged one only with sexual violence and demanded four years in prison. In its three-day plea, the prosecution demanded a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 18 years in prison for rape for all the others.
“The experience was so extraordinary that there will be a before and an after,” said prosecutor Laure Chabaud. “We can hope for a real and profound awareness of the defendants of the acts and especially of the question of consent.”
The mammoth trial has been rocking France since September. The defence begins its closing arguments on Wednesday afternoon.
The court plans to deliver its judgment shortly before Christmas.
Gisèle Pelicot believes she was raped almost 200 times over a period of almost ten years. A number of videos and photos of her then-husband are said to corroborate the assaults.
Investigators suspect that, in addition to the 50 co-defendants, around a dozen other men were involved in the crimes, but they could not be identified.
GNA