At the Mazan rape trial, the hour of the historic verdict | EUROtoday

LWill the 51 accused within the Mazan rape trial all go to jail, because the prosecution demanded? Will the judges as a substitute comply with the protection legal professionals, who’ve argued for dozens of acquittals? This Thursday, December 19 morning, the Vaucluse legal court docket delivers its extremely anticipated verdict. After three and a half months of listening to and three days of deliberation, the 5 magistrates of the legal court docket will announce, from 9:30 a.m., the destiny that they’ve determined to order for these males aged 27 to 74, all social backgrounds, got here to sexually assault Gisèle Pelicot, beforehand sedated by her then husband, Dominique, at their house in Mazan (Vaucluse).

The choice, which will probably be rendered in an Avignon courthouse positioned beneath heavy police safety, will probably be carefully scrutinized, in France and overseas, as this trial has brought about, since its opening on September 2, a shock wave. , changing into emblematic of points surrounding gender-based and sexual violence, chemical submission, consent and extra broadly male-female relationships.

Unless there’s a shock, the primary accused, Dominique Pelicot, 72, who admitted to having drugged his spouse Gisèle with anxiolytics for a decade to rape her and hand her over to dozens of strangers he recruited on the Internet, ought to obtain the sentence. most of 20 years in jail requested by the general public prosecutor.

Thirty requests for acquittal

The nice unknown lies within the sentences his co-defendants will obtain, the court docket essentially having to individualize its sanctions, and within the acquittal from which some might or might not profit. At the top of November, the general public prosecutor had requested 10 to 18 years’ imprisonment towards 49 of them, tried for aggravated rape, and 4 years in jail towards the final one, solely prosecuted for “touching” Gisèle Pelicot.

These requisitions are extra extreme than the common sentence for rape in France, which was 11.1 years in 2022, in line with the Ministry of Justice. Laure Chabaud, one of many two representatives of the general public prosecutor’s workplace, had hoped that the court docket’s choice would transcend the destiny of those accused and ship “a message of hope to victims of sexual violence”. This verdict ought to represent a information “in the education of our sons, because it is through education that change will be driven” for “a collective, societal awareness”, she insisted.

ALSO READ At the Mazan rape trial, the “labyrinth” of the protectionConversely, the protection legal professionals made round thirty requests for acquittal for his or her shoppers who, in line with them, have been “manipulated” by the “monster”, the “wolf” and even the “ogre” Dominique Pelicot. They “did not intend” to rape his ex-wife, now 72 years outdated, and due to this fact didn’t commit a criminal offense inside the that means of the Penal Code, they argued.

86 overseas media

The stress is more likely to be palpable inside the courtroom itself, the place a big police presence is deliberate within the occasion that the court docket pronounces committal warrants towards the 32 accused who appeared free. To make room for them, solely 4 media shops – together with AFP – out of the almost 180 accredited, together with 86 foreigners, will have the ability to attend the studying of the decision in the primary courtroom. The different journalists will hearken to him from a number of facet rooms.

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Outside the court docket, actions by feminist teams are deliberate to assist Gisèle Pelicot and criticize “rape culture”. Unusual when it comes to its length, the variety of accused, however above all of the atrocity of the alleged acts, this trial has already made historical past. In the ranks of feminist associations and civil events, there’s nice hope of seeing it change mentalities relating to rapes, tried rapes and sexual assaults reported every year by greater than 200,000 girls in France.

ALSO READ At the Mazan trial, “looking rape straight in the eye” This affair will even have made it doable to embody the scourge of victims of sexual assault, specifically via using chemical submission, via the determine of Gisèle Pelicot, who from an nameless sufferer remodeled over the weeks into an icon feminist urging girls “to stop being silent” in order that “shame changes sides”.