Gisèle Pelicot returns to court to face one of men convicted of raping her

Gisèle Pelicot, who survived almost a decade of rape involving dozens of men after she was drugged by her ex-husband, has arrived at a court in France for the appeal trial of one of the men convicted of raping her.

Pelicot became a feminist hero after she decided to waive her right to anonymity in the trial of her former husband and 50 other men last year.

The 72-year-old arrived at the appeals court in the southern French city of Nîmes on Monday with one of her sons and shook hands with supporters.

Her lawyer, Antoine Camus, had said she would have preferred not to face the ordeal of attending another trial but would be present in court nonetheless. “She will be there to explain that a rape is a rape, that there is no such thing as a small rape,” Camus told Agence France-Presse.

Husamettin Dogan, 44, a builder who was sentenced to nine years in prison for raping Pelicot, has appealed against his conviction.

The first trial last year heard he made contact with her then husband, Dominique Pelicot, in a chatroom and drove to the couple’s home the same night in June 2019, telling his wife he was going out. He was convicted of raping Gisèle Pelicot while she was unconscious.

Dogan told the first trial last year that he thought it was just a game. “I’m not a rapist, that’s too heavy for me to bear,” he said. His lawyer declined to comment before the appeal trial.

At first, 17 of the 51 convicted men said they would appeal against the verdict, but 16 gradually dropped out, leaving only one appeal.

Dominique Pelicot, one of the worst sex offenders in modern French history, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for drugging his then wife and inviting dozens of men to rape her in her home in the south of France over a period of almost a decade of their marriage.

Last year’s trial in Avignon heard that Dominique Pelicot had crushed sleeping tablets and anti-anxiety medication into Gisèle Pelicot’s mashed potato, coffee or ice-cream and invited dozens of men to rape her in the village of Mazan in south-east France, where the couple had retired. A total of 50 other men were found guilty.

Now serving a prison sentence in solitary confinement, Dominique Pelicot will appear as a witness at the appeal court trial. He is expected to repeat what he said at the first trial: “I am a rapist and all the accused men in this room are rapists.”

Gisèle Pelicot, a former logistics manager, had insisted the first rape trial in 2024 be held in public to raise awareness of drug-induced rape and abuse. “It’s not for us to have shame, it’s for them,” she said in court.