Beatrice Zavarro, lawyer of Dominique Pelicot, the Frenchman convicted of drugging his ex-wife in order that dozens of strangers might rape her, arrives for her consumer’s listening to on the judicial heart devoted to chilly circumstances on the Nanterre courthouse, west of Paris, on January 30, 2025. Pelicot, who was jailed for 20 years in December 2024 following a trial that horrified France, can be underneath investigation in two different circumstances: tried rape and rape adopted by the homicide of two younger girls within the Nineties. (Photograph by Bertrand GUAY / AFP)
PARIS, France — Frenchman Dominique Pelicot, convicted in December for organizing the rape of his then-wife Gisele Pelicot by dozens of strangers, was questioned on Thursday by an investigating Justice of the Peace over tried rape, in addition to rape and homicide, within the Nineties, his lawyer stated.
Pelicot, 72, who was sentenced in December to twenty years for aggravated rape, was questioned over rape and homicide in Paris in 1991 and tried rape within the Seine-et-Marne area outdoors the capital in 1999, his lawyer Beatrice Zavarro stated.
“Mr. Pelicot answered all of the questions he was requested, cooperating like he has all the time completed,” Zavarro stated afterwards.
She stated the investigation, being dealt with by a unit within the Paris suburb of Nanterre devoted to “chilly circumstances” had been underway since October 2022 and Dominique Pelicot had already been interrogated in October 2023.
He has denied involvement within the 1991 rape and homicide case however has admitted to the 1999 tried rape after he was recognized by his DNA.
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These dates are properly earlier than the close to decade from 2011 to 2020 throughout which Pelicot invited dozens of strangers, whom he had recruited on-line, to the household house within the city of Mazan in southern France to rape his closely sedated spouse Gisele.
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The 20-year hole between these crimes has sparked fears that Pelicot might have dedicated different acts within the interim that haven’t but come to mild.
His ex-wife Gisele Pelicot has been hailed as a hero for her braveness and dignity within the over-three-month trial that resulted in December with all 51 defendants, together with her former husband and the lads he enlisted to rape her, being convicted.
‘Little bottle of ether’
Throughout his trial, Dominique Pelicot confessed to the 1999 tried rape.
“It was certainly me,” he stated. “I took off her T-shirt, her footwear, and her trousers however I didn’t do something.”
However he denied having performed a job within the homicide and rape of Sophie Narme, an actual property agent killed in Paris in 1991.
“I’ve nothing to do with that case,” he stated, regardless of the similarities within the two circumstances, with each the victims younger actual property brokers aged 23, who have been visited by a person underneath a false title to view an condo.
The 2 girls have been undressed from under in the identical method.
A robust odor of ether — an anaesthetic traditionally utilized in surgical procedure — was additionally famous on the crime scene round Sophie Narme, and the substance had been used to assault the younger girl in 1999.
“I had a little bit bottle of ether within the automobile and a bit of string,” he stated of the tried rape case throughout his trial.
Requested why he fled, he stated: “I had a psychological block, pondering it might have been my daughter,” he stated.
Pelicot’s daughter, Caroline Darian, would have been in her early twenties on the time.
Darian, now 46, believes she was additionally drugged and raped by Pelicot after seeing photos of her unconscious physique, carrying underwear she didn’t acknowledge, have been discovered among the many detailed data her father stored of his crimes.
She instructed the BBC this month that he “ought to die in jail” as he was “a harmful man”.
Among the many 50 others sentenced in December, 14 have appealed.
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Dominique Pelicot might thus once more seem in courtroom, however as a witness, throughout an appeals trial later this yr in entrance of a jury, in line with a prosecutor within the southern metropolis of Nimes.