{"id":481096,"date":"2025-10-07T19:46:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T19:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/481096\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T19:46:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T19:46:11","slug":"gisele-pelicots-ex-husband-tells-court-man-convicted-of-rape-knew-she-was-sedated-gisele-pelicot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/481096\/","title":{"rendered":"Gis\u00e8le Pelicot\u2019s ex-husband tells court man convicted of rape knew she was sedated | Gis\u00e8le Pelicot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Dominique Pelicot, who drugged his ex-wife <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/gisele-pelicot\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Gis\u00e8le Pelicot<\/a> and invited dozens of strangers to rape her over almost a decade, has told a court that a man who is appealing against his rape conviction knew she was sedated and came to their home deliberately to abuse her.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/oct\/06\/gisele-pelicot-returns-court-face-one-men-convicted-raping-her-husamettin-dogan-appeal\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Husamettin Dogan<\/a>, 44, a married father, is seeking to overturn his conviction for raping Gis\u00e8le Pelicot while she was unconscious in her own bed in June 2019. Dogan is being tried on appeal in N\u00eemes in southern France.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Pelicot said he met Dogan, an unemployed builder, on a chatroom called \u201cagainst her knowledge\u201d and told him clearly that he drugged his then wife and was seeking men to come to rape her.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cHe had that information from the start,\u201d Pelicot said, adding that he told Dogan by phone: \u201cI\u2019m looking for someone to abuse my wife after I\u2019ve put her to sleep without her knowledge.\u201d Pelicot said <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2024\/sep\/17\/dominique-pelicot-france-rape-trial-testimony\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">he had admitted drugging his wife, raping her himself and inviting men to rape her<\/a>. \u201cThey all knew, they all came with the same intention,\u201d he said. \u201cI always said she was sedated.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2024\/dec\/11\/a-rapist-can-be-in-the-family-how-dominique-pelicot-became-one-of-the-worst-sexual-predators-in-history\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pelicot<\/a>, a 73-year-old former electrician and estate agent, is one of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2024\/dec\/19\/gisele-pelicot-trial-husband-jailed-for-20-years-as-all-51-men-found-guilty\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">worst sex offenders in modern French history<\/a>. He is serving a 20-year prison sentence after crushing sleeping tablets and anti-anxiety medication into his then wife\u2019s food and inviting dozens of men to rape her while she was unconscious in their bedroom in the Provence village of Mazan between 2011 and 2020.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">For Tuesday\u2019s hearing he was transported from his high-security prison in southern <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/france\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">France<\/a>, where he is in solitary confinement, to the N\u00eemes appeals court to give evidence as a witness in a secure witness box, flanked by four police officers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Gis\u00e8le Pelicot, 72, who became an international feminist hero after she waived her right to anonymity in the trial last year, sat calmly in court with her youngest son, Florian.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Dogan, 44, was one of 51 men convicted. He was sentenced to nine years in prison for raping Gis\u00e8le Pelicot. He is the only man to contest his conviction, telling the appeal trial: \u201cI never intended to rape that lady.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Dominique Pelicot told the court he had given Dogan specific instructions because Gis\u00e8le Pelicot was drugged and was not to be woken. \u201cI said precisely on the phone there was to be no tobacco, no scent, he was to wash his hands, no violence, it would be filmed. All these things left him in no doubt of her state. He had to get undressed at the entrance to the kitchen on the patio because if there was a problem, I didn\u2019t want him to stay,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">He said Dogan, who had driven about an hour from another village after telling his wife he was going out, arrived around midnight. Pelicot said he at first got lost and he went out on foot to guide him to the house.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Asked if Dogan was upset to see Gis\u00e8le Pelicot lying unconscious on her bed, Dominique Pelicot replied: \u201cNo, it suited him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">He said there was a camera on a tripod in the room, so there would have been no doubt the rape would be filmed. He said Dogan stayed for about two hours. He said Dogan even asked for his help in the rapes that night. \u201cHe asked me to lift my wife\u2019s leg and wanted to put her head in a certain position because she couldn\u2019t do it,\u201d Pelicot said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">He said Dogan \u201ctook pleasure\u201d in the situation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Asked about Dogan\u2019s assertion that Pelicot told him it was a game, he replied: \u201cNo, I never said that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Pelicot said of Dogan\u2019s appeal: \u201cI think it is indecent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The trial continues until Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dominique Pelicot, who drugged his ex-wife Gis\u00e8le Pelicot and invited dozens of strangers to rape her over almost&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-481096","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115334609860026687","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}