Dominique Pelicot, the man who drugged his ex-wife Gisèle Pelicot and invited strangers to rape her over nearly a decade, told a French appeals court on Tuesday that Husamettin Dogan knew she was sedated when he came to their home to abuse her. Dogan, 44, is appealing his rape conviction, claiming he did not intend to rape her.
Pelicot, 73, testified from a secure witness box in Nîmes, saying he met Dogan on a chatroom called “against her knowledge” and clearly told him he was seeking men to rape his drugged wife. “He had that information from the start,” Pelicot said, adding that he gave Dogan specific instructions not to wake her, including no tobacco, no scent, and to wash his hands.
Dogan, an unemployed builder and married father, was one of 51 men convicted in the mass rape case. He received a nine-year sentence for raping Gisèle Pelicot in June 2019 while she was unconscious. He is the only man to contest his conviction, telling the court: “I never intended to rape that lady.”
Pelicot described how Dogan arrived around midnight after driving about an hour from another village. He said Dogan stayed for about two hours and even asked for help positioning Gisèle Pelicot’s body because she could not move. “He asked me to lift my wife’s leg and wanted to put her head in a certain position because she couldn’t do it,” Pelicot testified.
When asked about Dogan’s claim that Pelicot told him it was a game, Pelicot replied: “No, I never said that.” Gisèle Pelicot, 72, who became a feminist icon after waiving her anonymity, attended the hearing calmly with her youngest son.
