Gisèle Pelicot’s ex-husband will not appeal his sentence for orchestrating mass rape – National

More than ten men convicted of rape Gisèle Pelicot intend to appeal the sentence, but her ex-husband, the mastermind behind her abusehe will not be one of them, his lawyer confirmed.

Speaking to France Info television, lawyer Béatrice Zavarro said Dominique Pelicot wanted to spare his ex-wife the painful trial of another trialbut he also acknowledged that there was a possibility that a new trial before a public jury could result in a longer prison sentence.

Of the 50 accused of rape, only one was acquitted, but he was found guilty of aggravated sexual assault. Another man was also found guilty of the sexual assault he was on trial for — meaning all 51 defendants found guilty one way or another.

Seventeen men appeal planreported by French news outlets.

The court sentenced Dominique Pelicot to 20 years in prison for drugging and raping Gisèle Pelicot and allowing other men to rape her while she was unconscious.

During the trial, Dominique Pelicot admitted that he drugged his unconscious wife with food and drink for almost a decade and invited dozens of men to rape her until she could agree. Gisèle Pelicot testified that she did not remember the event and for years wondered why she was often so tired.

The trial gripped France and raised new awareness of sexual violence. Gisèle Pelicot waived her right to anonymity as a survivor of sexual abuse and successfully lobbied for hearings and shocking evidence — including home footage of her ex-husband’s rape — to be heard in open court, insisting the shame should fall on her abusers, not she.

In return, she received public applause and turned into an icon of the fight against sexual violence.

The convicts are between 26 and 74 years old. Many of them deny raping Gisèle Pelicot, saying her then-husband manipulated them or that they believed she consented.

“We share the same struggle,” she said in it first words after a court in the southern French city of Avignon imposed prison terms. She added that during the arduous trial, which lasted more than three months, she thought of her grandchildren.

“I fought this fight for them,” she said then.

—with files from the Associated Press

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