Woman ‘r*ped by 72 men after drugged by husband’ captivates world as she testifies against alleged abusers

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A brave woman allegedly drugged by her now ex-husband and raped by dozens of men he invited to their home has captivated the world as she testified against her suspected abusers.

Gisele Pelicot, 72, told crowds outside the French courthouse on Thursday, “We will have to fight until the end,” after detailing the horror of discovering that her former spouse had systematically filmed the alleged rapes by 72 suspects while she was unconscious — storing thousands of images that police investigators later found.

The trial of Dominique Pelicot, now 71, and 50 other men on charges of aggravated rape got underway in the southern French city of Avignon on Monday — in public, at the insistence of Gisele Pelicot, who also waived her right to anonymity. She said she hopes her testimony might help spare other women from similar ordeals, after she “was sacrificed on the altar of vice” and left with four sexually transmitted infections.

Speaking in a calm and clear voice with impressive composure, the 72-year-old told the court of the moment her world “collapses” when she was confronted with the unfathomable. After uncovering years of suspected abuse, police showed her some of the images of “barbarity” allegedly stored by her husband of 50 years with whom she had three children.

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“It’s unbearable,” she testified for the first time on Thursday in an hour of evidence. “I have so much to say that I don’t always know where to start.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/crime/gisele-pelicot-france-court-rape-drug-husband-b2608158.html

A 71-year-old man is on trial in France over allegations that he drugged his wife and invited dozens of strangers to rape her in their home over nearly a decade, in a case that has shocked the country.

The husband, Dominique Pelicot, offered sex with his wife on a website, and filmed the abuse, the prosecutor’s office said. Fifty other men, accused of raping his wife as she was knocked unconscious by the drugs, are also on trial.

They all face up to 20 years in jail, if found guilty.

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Due to the drugs, Pelicot’s wife had been entirely unaware of the rapes, which took place at their home in the southern France town of Mazan, until police told her about them, four years ago, her lawyers have said.

The trial, which opened on Monday (September 2), is set to last until December and will not be held behind closed doors, unlike what can be the case, to protect the victim, for violent sex crimes, after Pelicot’s wife, now aged 72, said she wanted it to be held publicly to alert the public to sexual abuse and drug-induced blackouts, her lawyers said.

Lawyer Stephane Babonneau, who also represents the victim, told French media, that, by asking that the trial should not take place behind closed doors, she wanted to show “that shame must change sides.”

Beatrice Zavarro, a lawyer for Dominique Pelicot, has told French media he admits to his crimes.

h/t 1r0n4n9el

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